


Take This Wish and Bury it in the Snow

by elise_509



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Established Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Happy Ending for all involved, M/M, Pining, Polyamory, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2020-10-05 00:16:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elise_509/pseuds/elise_509
Summary: As the result of a villainous attack, Steve is reverted back to his pre-serum body.  This presents a problem for Bucky, as he could haveswornhe was perfectly, totally, completely all right with Tony Stark having his hands all over his best friend.Turns out, he’s not.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another one that's been sitting on the hard drive, unfinished, for nearly four years. I'm also going to try something different and post in shorter chapters rather than my usual quite long chapters, so if folks are interested and do want to see the rest of this(?), updates should be more frequent.

The coffee cup breaks in Bucky’s metal fist, the white ceramic cracking like a fault line. The pieces hold together until he slowly releases his grasp, and then they clatter to the counter. 

The hot liquid runs through the ridges of his fingers and seeps over the granite, pools on the tile floor.

Natasha casually tosses a red and white striped towel over the mess. She arches an eyebrow at him as she takes a sip from her own mug, evidently choosing to keep her thoughts to herself.

“That’s the third one this week, Barnes,” Stark comments, pulling his attention away from doting on Steve long enough to notice what’s going on in the rest of the kitchen. “If you don’t like the pattern, there are other ways to channel your inner Martha Stewart.”

“Is your hand acting up?” Steve’s concern is evident on his face, so much softer and thinner – just like it used to be – now that the effects of the serum have been reversed. 

Steve gets up from his place beside Stark at the kitchen island, feet far enough from the floor now that he has to hop down from the bar stool. Bucky doesn’t miss how Stark’s hand trails down Steve’s rail thin arm as Steve moves a few steps away, like every possible second of contact has to be utilized. “Tony, maybe you could –”

“It’s fine, worry about your own damn problems,” Bucky interrupts tersely, immediately feeling horrible when Steve physically recoils. He’d forgotten how much Steve could look like a kicked puppy, big blue eyes so wounded and sad. Bucky sighs softly. “You got enough on your plate without worrying ‘bout me.” 

“Buck, c’mon. You know no matter what, I got your back.” 

“Well, you’re hardly in the position to do that anymore.” Bucky winces at his own cruelty, wishing he could take it back. He’d never criticized Steve for his slight stature, his slim frame. Teased, maybe, but he’d been the only one growing up besides Steve’s ma who saw beyond his physical limitations, who saw his real potential. 

Steve’s jaw tightens in that way it used to when he’d stubbornly refuse Bucky’s help, when he wanted to put up a tough front and prove he could stand up for himself. While he’d seen righteous indignation and staunch determination on Steve’s decidedly more broad and chiseled face in recent years, it’s been ages since he’s seen this particular petulant, defiant edge to Steve’s expression and it makes Bucky’s heart hurt even more.

What he _says_, however, is pure twenty-first century Steve, the Steve who sleeps in Stark’s bed every night and has picked up a few of the man’s less appealing tics and habits.

“Fuck you, Barnes.” His long, bony fingers curl into fists at his sides but Bucky knows he’s doing it to hold back his anger; he’s not spoiling for an actual altercation. Steve stares up at him for a long moment, the heat in his gaze cooling to disappointment. 

“Steve…” Bucky starts, but he has no words to finish with. Steve shakes his head.

“Just forget it. I have to go.” Steve turns on his heel and walks out. He even moves the way he used to, shoulders hunched and his chin down like he wants to disappear completely. Stark watches him go, gaze concerned but calculating. He knows enough to let Steve leave without interference, and the lack of his usually incessant chatter says more than any words ever could.

He waits until Steve’s well and gone before snapping a reproachful glare Bucky’s way. 

“You owe me a new set of mugs,” Stark snipes, as if this is really about glassware. 

“I don’t owe _you_ shit.” 

Stark pushes away from the table and stands. Leaving the remains of his and Steve’s breakfast for someone else to clean up, he heads for the elevator. Bucky can hear him direct JARVIS where to go. 

“Our floor, J.” 

_Our floor._ Bucky bites back bitter, sarcastic laughter. Steve and Tony. Tony and Steve. They are the _our_ now, the pair, the core of everything. There’s not a _Steve and Bucky_ anymore—Stark’s always there between them, a glaring reminder that Steve was never and will never be his. 

Bucky pushes at a jagged slice of the broken mug with one of his flesh-and-blood fingers, the rough point digging into his skin and drawing blood. Natasha takes it from him, wordlessly gathers up the other shards into another clean towel and then shakes them all into the trash.

“So, why are you being a dick?” 

“I’m not –”

“You are.” Natasha holds up her hand, cutting him off. “And you know it.” Bucky casts his gaze down to the floor, refusing to acknowledge how right she is. “You’re the only one around who knows what it was like for Steve before. You’re best equipped to help him adjust and get through this.”

“Adjust and get through _what_, it’s not permanent.”

“We don’t know that.” 

Bucky looks up at her, finally, ready to argue the point.

“Thor said he knew –” 

“Thor _suspects_. Two different things,” Natasha points out flatly. 

“Thanks for the lesson in splitting hairs,” Bucky snorts, rolling his eyes. There’s blood welling up from the cut he made in the pad of his finger, a perfectly round drop growing slowly bigger even as he looks at it. He wipes it on the edge of his black t-shirt before it can break form and streak across his palm. 

“You just got him back in your life, Bucky.” She steps closer to him, the hard edge of her voice softening slightly. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you keep acting like this when he needs you most –”

“What Steve needs is Tony – he’s made that _abundantly_ clear.”

“That’s what this is about?” He doesn’t know how she’s surprised, but he’s not about to get into this with her. What he’s feeling is his business, and only his. 

“There is no _this_. So I broke a few dishes. People have accidents. Leave it alone.” 

Natasha stares at him for a long moment, green eyes cool and appraising. Her lips settle into a tight frown.

“Fine.” Natasha tosses the towel onto the messy counter, ridding her hands of him. The rest of the spilt coffee seeps and spreads through the fabric immediately, staining the creamy white to an ugly brown. 

“Fine.” He echoes.

“Finish cleaning up your own mess.” She snaps. “And watch you don’t make a bigger one.”

Bucky scowls at her retreating back and swipes at the remains of the coffee on the counter. He turns to go to the sink to wring out the towel, and jostles the mug that Natasha left behind. He sends it spinning to the floor. 

The crash seems ridiculously loud in the now quiet room. 

“Fuck.” Bucky mutters, shaking his head. That one really was an accident.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve has the flu.

Correction. It’s been a month, and Steve has the flu _again_. 

No sooner had he recovered than Tony came down with it himself, who passed it right back to Steve. Tony says he was careful to keep away, but Bucky knows better, knows Steve. The stubborn prat undoubtedly persisted in caring for Tony the way Tony had cared for him. 

Steve’s predictable even still. 

He finds Steve bundled on the living room couch, barely visible under multiple layers of blankets. Thankfully his congestion must have subsided enough to allow him to sleep, and Steve looks peaceful despite his fever-pink cheeks and irritation-red nose. Tissues have made their way from their brand new boxes to the wastebasket beside the couch; it’s near overflowing with evidence of Steve’s illness. 

A half-empty bottle of cough syrup and a broken blister pack of throat lozenges sit on the coffee table next to a rickety stack of books, perilously organized with smaller paperbacks at the bottom and a massive hardcover on top. A rumpled copy of the New York Times is folded open to the crossword puzzle, half-finished in two different styles of handwriting and with two worn down pencils lying on top of it. There’s also an abandoned game of chess, and a now-stone cold cup of green tea bleeding a ring of moisture onto one of Steve’s sketchpads. 

Bucky carefully moves the mug onto a coaster and clears a space for the white paper deli bag he’s brought in with him. The smell of food must pull Steve from slumber. 

He snuffles a little, long eyelashes fluttering as he slowly stirs. He looks so young like this. 

“Welcome back, sleepyhead,” Bucky says gently, resisting the urge to reach out and run his hand through Steve’s messy hair.

“Bucky…hey…” Steve murmurs, rubbing his eyes. His voice is wrecked and he sounds dog tired. He coughs lightly, and then focuses his weary gaze on Bucky. “You sound like my ma.” 

There are worse people to sound like than Sarah Rogers, so Bucky takes it as a compliment. 

Steve shifts, pushing up to sit, and Bucky catches sight of the Iron Man plushie that’s tucked against his side.

Steve notices him noticing, and blushes.

“Tony thinks it’s funny.” His dry, chapped lips crack as he forces a weak smile. “Actually works real good as a neck pillow, keeps me propped up.”

“Good,” Bucky says, but shifts it out of the way as he takes a seat along the edge of the couch, fitting himself along Steve’s side. “I got somethin’ for ya.”

He opens up the bag and pulls out a steaming hot container of soup, along with some napkins and a metal spoon he’d grabbed from the kitchen on his way in. 

“Went down to Rivington and guess what, Streit’s is still there. Got some fresh matzo and made some soup special, just like Mrs. Goldberg used to. Down in 4A, remember her?”

“Mrs. Goldberg…” Steve sighs, laughing lightly before the rattling in his chest cuts off his breath. “Haven’t thought of her in years.” 

“Well, I don’t think this will be as tasty as hers, ‘cause I ain’t no kinda cook, but it should do the trick. We’ll have you feeling top notch again in no time, pal.” 

“Remember how Irv used to run away just about once a week?” Steve sneezes twice in a row, but grabs a fresh tissue and then continues on with his memory. “And she’d be leaning out that window--"

"Shouting ‘Irrrrrrrrrrrrr-viiiiiiiiing!’ at the top of her lungs--" Bucky joins in, remembering the shrill call so clearly.

"The whole dang neighborhood could hear her.”

“He never went further than the corner store, the damn fool. Just wanted her to worry,” Bucky chuckles along with Steve. He uses his foot to nudge the wastebasket closer to Steve’s reach as he throws the tissue away. “Wonder whatever happened to that kid. Last thing I recall, he wanted to head on out to Hollywood and get himself a blonde bombshell like Lana Turner, give his mama a heart attack.”

Steve’s smile falls, and he averts his gaze, suddenly very interested in picking at a piece of lint on one of the blankets pulled up over his small body.

“What.”

“Irving died in the war. Was with the 26th at Kasserine Pass. She got the telegram about two days after you shipped out.” Steve’s fingers pull at the fabric now, tugging on a loose thread and making the hem run. “Scared the shit out of me. I felt terrible for her…but that didn’t stop me from thanking God it was him and it wasn’t you.” Steve glances up, but just as quickly looks back down. “Kinda makes me a terrible person, huh.”

“No. It doesn’t.” Bucky reaches out, wanting to still Steve’s hand, maybe hold it in his own. But Steve moves away, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth as he coughs again. 

“Guess I should try some ‘a this soup ’fore it gets cold.” 

Bucky allows the topic change, following Steve’s cue. He picks up the plastic container and edges closer to Steve, offering him a spoonful. 

Steve gives him a stern look.

“Not an invalid, Buck, I can feed myself.”

“Far be it from me to help,” Bucky retorts, dropping the spoon back into the container. He hands it over to Steve. “You hold it then, and don’t ask me to clean up when you have a fit and spill it all over yourself.”

“I’m not going to –” Steve starts angrily. As if his body is deliberately out to prove him wrong, a fierce cough takes hold of him just then; he curls in on himself, the hand around the soup involuntarily tightening. The flimsy plastic curves under the pressure and the force of his cough shakes the liquid violently. Hot broth splashes over his fingers and wrist, drips down to the blankets and onto the couch. 

Bucky grabs the container back and sets it on the coffee table, ignoring the spill. Steve is too wracked to protest. By force of habit, Bucky quickly hands Steve a tissue and then moves half behind him; he leans Steve forward, rubbing his back as he weakly tries to retch phlegm from his chest and throat. 

“_Fuck_,” Steve mumbles when he finally stops hacking, his voice rough and hollow. He crumples up the tissue in aggravation, tight in the ball of his fist. He draws his legs in close and leans his head against his knees. It hurts Bucky to hear him struggling to breathe. 

Not thinking, Bucky starts running his hand soothingly through Steve’s sweat-damp hair, pushing the wet strands back from his glistening forehead. Steve’s closing his eyes, and Bucky can _see_ him concentrating, trying to regain control over his breathing. 

“It’s okay…” Bucky says comfortingly. He regrets it when he hears Steve suck in a sharp inhale. It’s a different sound than before. Steve bites his lip and keeps his eyes shut as tightly as he can, clearly fighting back tears of frustration and pain. 

It’s not okay, and Bucky knows if Steve had the ability to speak at that moment, he would have sniped that right at him. 

“How’s our stubborn ass patient doing?” Tony disturbs the quiet, entering the living room with typical bluster. He’s juggling multiple bags and a large box, all from different stores. With a terrific clatter, Tony drops them onto the love seat and the floor when he peers down to find the coffee table is already strewn with detritus. 

When Steve doesn’t reply, Tony’s attitude sobers quickly. Free of all the packages, he pauses to take stock of the room. Bucky pulls his hand away from Steve’s back, untangles his fingers from Steve’s hair. The fact that he hadn’t thought to do so until Tony is _staring_ only makes it all the more noticeable and awkward. 

Tony gives him a look, one that says he knows more than Bucky suspects, but doesn’t say anything aloud. 

“Steve, babe?” His tone has shifted, turning soft. He comes to the couch and he’s taking Bucky’s spot before Bucky knows what’s going on. He’s gently pushed aside, Tony insinuating himself right by Steve’s side. 

“I hate this,” Steve murmurs brokenly, and Tony wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulls him close, and presses a kiss to his temple. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re warm. Normally I love you all sweaty, Cap, but this isn’t a sexy kind of glisten. You need to make it to a shower.”

“I don’t think he’s up to standing,” Bucky interjects, his head filling with visions of Steve getting dizzy, knocking himself unconscious and bloody as he falls, head smacking against unforgiving porcelain and brass. It’s not something he has to pull from his imagination – happened winter of ’37, the year after his ma passed. Steve almost didn’t make it back from that one. 

“We can take a bath then,” Tony replies. The _we_ lands as hard as a punch to the gut. The thought of Steve injured in a violent fall is replaced with the equally unwelcome image of Steve and Tony together, bathed in soft light and warm, soapy water, Steve cradled in Tony’s arms as Tony runs his hands over Steve’s pale, bare skin. 

“We’ll get you cleaned up and into some fresh clothes – I got more of those cheap-ass pajamas you like, the t-shirt jersey cotton ones –”

“Hmmm.” Steve smiles faintly at that, tilting his head to lean on Tony’s shoulder at Tony’s encouragement.

“I had to schlep all the way down to Target on 34th - me in a _Target_, Steve, _me_ \- found ‘em in the boys department. Hope you like dinosaurs on your PJs.”

“You’re such a dick.” Steve’s retort is muffled as he bewilderingly moves closer to Tony, practically snuggling against his side.

“Uh-huh,” Tony agrees simply, smiling down at the top of Steve’s head and patting his hair in a patronizing way. Bucky knows it’s in jest but it somehow makes him hate Tony all the more. The privilege of poking fun at Steve and getting away with it used to be his and his alone. “JARVIS has loaded up the queue with all the old Katharine Hepburn movies he could get his figurative hands on, and I have a stack of crosswords and Sudoku and all that junk for you. I probably killed a whole forest because you won’t use the damn tablet.”

“Crosswords should be on newspaper, you need paper,” Steve mutters drowsily. Tony nods knowingly, like he’s heard this all before. 

“Tell it to the trees, buddy. I also got a better vaporizer and Bruce sent a new batch of that eucalyptus oil you can snort – there are much more fun things to put up your nose, but okay – and he made this peppermint, rosemary, beeswax stuff to put on your chest to help with the congestion.” Tony carefully rearranges Steve against his side so he can lean over, dig into the nearest paper bag which has helpfully fallen over within reach. He pulls out a small tub, screwing off the lid. The mixture reeks, the peppermint so strong it tickles Bucky’ nose even from where he’s standing. 

Tony tilts it toward Steve, giving him a direct whiff; Steve can’t help but perk up, the scent stronger than the smelling salts his ma used to use when the stench of city trash baking in the summer sun got too strong. Steve looks up at Tony, his bloodshot eyes wide, and Tony wiggles his eyebrows at him.

“Looking forward to slathering this all over you. Who said being sick wasn’t fun,” Tony quips with a lascivious leer and a playful wink. He gingerly helps Steve lie back against the couch cushions and then stands. “I’ll go run the bath, I got one of those sparkly bath bombs that Pepper used to like in here somewhere –” He’s digging through other bags now, and Bucky’s frankly boggled that Tony went shopping himself and didn’t send one of his Stark Industries minions. “We’re gonna smell like a vanilla cupcake, or a ‘moonlight breeze’ or whatever that means. Ah-ha, here it is – ‘Lavender and Chamomile’ – and hey, it’s _fizzy_. I suspect we’re about to have bubbles in places we never dreamed of, nor wanted.”

“Okay, Tony.” Steve is back to being half-asleep already, somehow soothed by the sound of Tony’s incessant prattling. 

“And I ordered Thai curry for dinner from that place you like. I know, I know, you’re not hungry,” Tony cuts off a protest that Steve didn’t even try to make. “But it will help clear out your sinuses and I tell you, that heat actually feels good on the sore throat. You’ll see, I’m not wrong.”

Leaving his mess of bags scattered across the living room, Tony grabs a couple bottles of something or other and then bends to kiss Steve on the forehead. 

“I’ll be back for you in less than five. Try not to run off and save the world while I’m gone.” 

“You’re hilarious, go away.” Steve doesn’t open his eyes as he bats off the hand Tony is running through his hair.

Tony looks at Bucky for this first time since he walked in and saw Bucky beside Steve on the couch, as if just remembering that the other man is even there. Bucky can see that fondness for Steve still shining brightly in his gaze, dimming slightly as he switches his attention. 

“You got this for a few?” Tony asks, gesturing toward Steve. 

Bucky’s never wanted to hit someone more. He holds back the slew of angry words threatening to spew forth, glaring at Tony before remembering to remind himself that this is about Steve, not him.

“Yeah, I _got this._” Bucky replies, unable to keep the cutting edge from his tone, but Tony’s already walking away. He kicks one of Tony’s shopping bags as Tony leaves, the paper giving a loud and satisfying rip as he mutters to himself, furious. “I _got this_ for god damn _years_ before you even existed, you fucking fucker.” 

“You say something, Buck?” Steve blinks his eyes open. He’s so pale and delicate like this, he’s almost _more_ striking and beautiful.

“Nothing, punk.” His anger sapped, he reclaims his seat alongside Steve, and glances toward the coffee table where the matzo soup sits untouched. “Guess your soup’s pretty lukewarm by now, after all that. Want me to heat it back up? It’ll just take a minute.”

Steve pushes to sit up a little, but shakes his head.

“Ya think it’ll keep?” 

“Sure, it’ll keep.” Bucky masks his disappointment as best he can.

“You took all that time to make it –”

“Didn’t take long at all, it was nothing.”

“It’s just that I’m really not that hungry, and Tony’s going to come back here any minute and drag me off for that bath of his.” Steve is attempting to sound disgruntled, but it doesn’t quite succeed. It still genuinely surprises him that Steve’s protests with Tony are more token than anything; that he might not even _mind_ Tony doting on him. Steve used to get downright cranky when Bucky was acting the mother hen, as if every time Bucky offered his help, it impugned his honor, his manful pride. 

Bucky chucks Steve gently on the shoulder with his fist and gets up, putting some space back between them.

“You’re gonna smell like a pretty, pretty flower, Rogers.”

“Guess I should be grateful I won’t be smelling like a ‘moonlight breeze.’ I mean…folks these days don’t _actually_ think moonlight has a scent, right?”

“People today pay good money to crush digital candy and raise make-believe animals on virtual farms, Stevie. I think good sense is a thing of the past.”

“Did we have good sense then?” Steve asks, the question sounding half-serious. He looks down at Steve, pondering the same thing. Would it have been good sense to say something back then about the way his heart thuds in his chest whenever Steve smiles at him? Would everything have gone differently if he had? 

Regardless, it’s not good sense to dwell on it now. There’s no going back, no do-overs. That much has been made overwhelmingly clear to him, if nothing else. 

“Maybe good sense is overrated.” Bucky shrugs and then starts gathering everything he’d brought from Streit’s to put it back in the deli bag. “I’ll stick this in the fridge with your name on it so Clint doesn’t steal it.”

“He might anyway.”

“Then he _might_ get my fist in his face.” Bucky went through this trouble for Steve, not for anyone else.

“I’ll have Tony take it up and put it in our fridge. I really do want to have it later.” 

“Sure, that’s fine.” Bucky rolls over the top of the bag; the paper crumples satisfyingly in his fist. He forces a smile for Steve’s benefit and repeats the lie to himself, as if saying it one more time will make it stick. 

Everything’s fine.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky lets out a long, deep exhale and watches the cloud of smoke blow away on the wind. His breath, fogging in the cold December air, chases after it. 

Behind him, the door to the balcony opens and slides closed with a mechanical whir. Bucky doesn’t have to turn to look to know that it’s Tony. It's his place after all.

He should leave. Even though this is technically Steve _and_ Tony’s floor now, and Steve invited him up, it never feels right to be here when Tony is too. Maybe it’s because Tony has never done the inviting, or that he and Tony have never been alone here without Steve, but whenever Tony arrives, Bucky instantly feels like an intruder in their private space. 

He felt that even before Steve lost the serum, and he feels it more acutely now. 

Bucky glances at Tony, and it's immediately obvious that he didn't come out here for a breath of fresh air. 

“I was about to —” Bucky starts, already heading toward the other door at the opposite end of the balcony. Tony holds up his hand, making a sharp noise like one might make when getting a horse to stop or a dog to heel.

“Hold up, Barnes.” Tony cuts him off, and then he winces for some reason Bucky doesn’t understand. “I mean, Bucky. Uh…stay a minute, please. We need to talk.” 

Bucky slowly takes a few steps back, eyeing Tony warily. He doesn’t _want_ to do this, but he can’t deny he has it coming. He’s honestly surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. 

Guiltily, he looks to his right, through the floor-to-ceiling windows, to where Steve sits inside, resting on the oversized couch in the sunken living room. Steve had once told him that before the Battle of New York left it partially in rubble, the room had been black marble and gold trim and shining glass, a full bar and a huge, black leather couch, but now it’s more subdued, homey. Still like Tony, but with more Steve. 

Steve is oblivious to the rest of the world, caught up in his drawing. There’s a furrow of concentration in his brow, his bottom lip worried between his teeth, and a dark smudge of graphite along the side of his hand. He’s probably drawing Tony. 

These days he’s always drawing Tony. 

Tony follows Bucky’s gaze, and now they’re both staring. 

Bucky coughs, and brings his cigarette back up to his lips.

“He seems to be doing a lot better.”

“Hasn’t had a fever in three days.” Tony smiles, relieved. 

“Guess I have you to thank for that.” Bucky states, but he didn't mean to sound so put out. He _is_ actually grateful. Tony has been by Steve’s side nearly every moment, and Bucky’s never seen Steve relent so easily to being taken care of. He’s not scared to be vulnerable with Tony. 

It had taken Bucky a lifetime to break down Steve’s walls, and Tony’s done it in a handful of years. 

“I mean…thank you. For taking such good care of 'im.” 

“You know I always will, right?” Tony asks, coming closer. He’s bundled up against the wintry breeze, dark pea coat and bright red scarf. He shoves his bare hands in his pockets. He looks warm. Bucky isn’t even wearing a jacket, only a black hoodie. “If he stays like this, without the serum…nothing changes. Not the way I feel about him, anyway.”

“I never doubted that, Stark.” It’s the truth. Whatever he may think about Tony Stark, he really hasn't doubted the man’s feelings for Steve, not for a second. Even though it would have been so much easier, so much _better_, if he could have believed Tony to be so fickle. He would have gone after Steve in a heartbeat if that were the case. If Tony weren’t good enough. 

But Tony’s good. Tony’s good for Steve. 

And Steve loves him back. 

“Then what’s the problem, here?” Tony gestures between them. 

“No problem,” Bucky lies. He offers Tony a drag of his cigarette and, to his surprise, Tony not only shakes his head, but grabs it from him and stubs it out, tossing the butt to the cement by their feet. 

“You know Steve fucking hates it when I smoke.” Bucky shrugs. Tony points at him. “And you know full well he hates it when you do too.” 

“I ain’t the one he’s kissing.” Bucky shrugs again. 

“And that never used to bother you.” Tony retorts, raising his eyebrows at Bucky. He stops beside him, facing him, and leans one elbow against the railing. “But now it does. Why.” 

“So when you asked about the problem, that was a rhetorical question then. You’ve already decided what it is.” 

“I don’t think I _decided_, Barnes, I think I _observed_—accurately, I might add—that for the past month and a half you’ve been looking at me like you want to throw me off this rooftop, and you’ve been looking at Steve like you need him as much as you need the air to breathe.”

“Stark, look—“

“And ordinarily I wouldn’t care, I’d let you dig your own grave, but you’re upsetting Steve.”

Except Tony does care, and as loathe as Bucky is to admit it, Tony wouldn’t merely stand back and let Bucky do this, whether Steve was upset or not. 

“Has he…has Steve said anything to you?”

Tony glares at him as if he asked whether the Earth is round, the answer obvious.

“Only every day since he got switched back.” He says flatly. “It’s not like you’ve been subtle. Something’s clearly bothering you, so he’s upset, and frankly, I’m confused. Because Steve and I have been together for over a year now, and I thought that we were cool. I thought maybe that we might even be considered…friendly, let’s say, if not friends. But suddenly you hate me, and I suspect it’s for the same reason I used to hate you.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that, so he takes a page from Tony’s usual playbook, the one the man seems to have maturely set aside for this conversation, and re-directs attention away from the actual matter at hand. 

“I _knew_ you hated me back then.” Bucky smirks, nodding his head back toward where Steve is safely ensconced indoors. “That punk never believed me.”

“Of course I hated you.” Tony rolls his eyes. “You were everything to him. He was chasing you all over the goddamned world, gone for months at a time…” He frowns, lips pulling tight. “And when you came back, and you were you again? You knew him in a way I never could. Fuck it, Bucky, if we’re finally being honest with each other here, I wanted to blast you through a wall. I was so fucking jealous.” 

This time Bucky doesn’t trust himself to crack wise. Part of him is thrilled by Tony’s admission, glad to know that Tony once hurt the same as he’s hurting now, but the other part, the better part, recognizes that feeling as childish and cruel. 

“I thought you two were madly in love with each other. I kept bracing myself for the day you finally told us all the truth and then rode off into the sunset.”

“And then one night Steve kissed you and you realized you were wrong.” Bucky mumbles, knowing that part of the story. Steve had told him the day after, grinning like a fool and his head up in the clouds, and Bucky honestly, truly, barely felt a twinge. His feelings for Steve were locked up so tightly in a small little box marked _before the war_ and that had been okay. For so long, it had been _okay_. 

“But I wasn’t wrong, was I?” Tony lays it out there, and even if Bucky doesn’t answer, it would still be an answer, so he waits a beat, trying to find the right words that won’t make everything so much worse than it already is. 

He takes a deep breath, winter sharp in his nose, and focuses back out onto the city skyline. It’s snowing, lightly. He wraps his hands around the railing, freezing cold underneath his right palm. He feels nothing but the weight of solid metal underneath his left. 

“Not about my side of things.” Bucky lets it go, finally, saying it aloud for the first time in his entire life. “I’ve always been crazy about him.” He smiles brokenly to himself. Only about seventy years too late. 

Tony remains silent beside him, but Bucky can hear him breathing, slowly, in and out, like he’s purposefully measuring them out. 

“Please don’t tell him.” Bucky whispers, even though there’s no one else there to hear him. 

“I won’t.” Tony assures him, but then surprises him by continuing, “Maybe you should.”

He almost asks why Tony would ever risk that, why he would want another man to tell his boyfriend that he’s in love with him, but he luckily realizes the arrogance of it before the question makes it out. 

He’s no danger to Tony and Steve. He’s seen the way Steve looks at Tony, and Tony has too. They both know he doesn’t stand a chance.

“What would be the point of that.” It’s not really a question. Bucky turns, putting his back to the city, his gaze again coming to rest on Steve. It’s like seeing him as a painting or on TV, perfect but distant. He looks comfortable, _content._ It’s safe and warm in the apartment, so inviting against the dark, snowy night that blusters so much harsher around the tower, this high above the ground. 

He remembers the cold nights in their tiny place in Vinegar Hill, when the radiator would clatter and sputter as it strained to spit out even the barest traces of heat, and he and Steve would huddle together in bed under layers and layers of blankets. Bucky would always give Steve the hot water bottle, and his best, thickest pair of wool socks that didn’t have any holes in them, and hold Steve close in his embrace. Those were the nights he could almost believe that Steve secretly loved him back and they both were too scared and too smart to say it aloud.

“It’s all right, Tony. I just have to…” Bucky tries to explain it, but the right words won’t come. “It just…it _got out_ somehow and I’m having trouble putting it back. But I will. I always do.” 

He had thought about telling Steve, once, when he got his call up and he realized he’d be going to war and might never come home. But he’d thought about doing that to Steve, putting that on him and then going off and _dying_ and it seemed so unfair, no matter if Steve returned his feelings or not. 

And then Steve has shown up in Azzano and he was Steve but _not_. By the time they walked back into camp, Bucky knew it was never going to be the same. He'd missed his chance.

“When he became Captain America, everyone finally saw what I saw. He could finally…Steve could have the life he’d always wanted. There was Peggy and now there’s _you_ and…” Bucky wraps his arms tightly around himself. His whole body is starting to hurt, all over, his limbs aching and his stomach twisting, and he realizes tears are threatening to spill. He doesn’t want Tony to see this. He may love Steve and because of that he deserves some answers, but he doesn’t have the right to Bucky’s pain. 

Bucky straightens his spine and blinks away the tears. 

“So I buried him. That Steve from before. He was gone. And I…I told myself I didn’t feel the same way about Steve after he changed. I let him go, Stark.” Bucky moves away from the railing, toward the windows, toward Steve. “But now he’s here. He’s right here. _My Steve_.” 

And Tony is touching his Steve, and kissing him, and making him laugh, and pulling him close without pretense, and it's not okay that Tony gets to have that when he never could.

“Bucky…” Tony starts, actually reaching for his hand out to touch him, and there’s such pity in his voice that it makes Bucky see red. 

“No. _No_. Don’t do that.” He whirls at Tony, and whatever expression is on his face must startle Tony enough that he stumbles back. It vaguely registers, somewhere in his peripheral vision, that Steve finally notices them both together outside. He sits up straight, suddenly alert and staring out at them, his pencil coming to rest against paper. 

“Bucky, why don’t we—“ Tony is trying to calm him now, and Bucky grits his teeth, curls his hands into tight fists as he strains to hold back the tumult of emotion desperately trying to break through. 

“I could deal with you and Steve when…god, Tony, I was even happy for you, I was. I swear it. Because _Steve_ was happy. But all that time, _I still had what we had_.” He stares at Tony, wanting him to understand. He doesn’t want to come between Steve and Tony, he doesn't want them to break up, but he just never expected that Tony would be the one to get what Bucky always wanted. To see Tony as the one to hold Steve’s thin, delicate body in his arms, to see that slight difference in how he smiled and laughed, or even the way his hair was a little softer and wispier as it fell over his forehead, his fingers so long and elegant when he brushed the wayward strands back. Those had been his memories, and now Tony has them too. 

“I had all those years between us, me and him against the world. No matter what anyone else took, no matter how much he shared, I was the only one who had that part of him. I was the only one alive who remembered, the only one who _loved_ him before all this, as he was, before the serum and the Avengers and _you_ and now…” Bucky gasps a desperate breath as the balcony door opens and Steve steps out into the freezing night, a look of concern on his beautiful face. 

Bucky stares at him, wide-eyed, and wonders how much of that he heard. 

His next thought is that Steve should not be out here, not when he’s recovering. He’s god damned barefoot, for Christ’s sake. 

But Tony’s got this. Bucky knows Tony will hurry Steve back inside in a moment and cuddle him up on the couch. Tony will explain that whatever occurred between him and Bucky just now was nothing for Steve to worry about. 

Bucky spins on his heel toward the other door and makes his escape, ignoring the way Steve’s plaintive call of _Bucky_ chases after.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-wrote this chapter from scratch three times. I don't know. Hopefully the end result is okay. Blerg.

Steve had excused himself and gone to bed shortly after Tony bundled him inside, wrapping him up in the throw from the couch to stave off the chill. 

He’d been quiet, strangely asking no questions about what he’d interrupted on the balcony before trundling off toward their bedroom, leaving his sketchbook and pencils behind. 

It left Tony uneasy, and he downs two tumblers of scotch before gathering up the courage to follow Steve to bed over an hour later.

The room is dark except for the faint moonlight drifting in through the tall, wide windows. After allowing a moment for his eyes to adjust, Tony can make out Steve’s slight form lying on the bed, tucked under the sheets and comforter, laying on his right side with his back to the bedroom door. He takes up so much less space than he used to, the California King mattress so unnecessary for his 5’4” frame. Tony tries to listen to Steve’s breathing to see if he’s asleep or not but he can’t tell from halfway across the room. 

He strips off his tie and shirt, then undoes his pants and lets them drop to the floor. The belt buckle clangs as it hits the ground and there’s another thud that makes him realize he’d left his phone in his pocket. On any other night he’d strip bare and slink into bed, press the warmth of his body against Steve’s curved back and slim hips, but tonight’s not any other night. 

Tony’s pretty sure Steve heard what Bucky said out there, and he doesn’t quite know how to handle it. On one hand, he’s sure that Steve loves him. It’d been a long, hard battle to believe that, but he won it. He’s not surrendering that crown. It’s his, and he earned it by slaying his own demons and defeating his insecurities. 

On the other hand, this thing with Steve and Bucky has been going on for decades, and now Bucky has finally said it out loud, brought the subtext to the surface where it can no longer be ignored. He frankly isn't sure what to do with that. But not doing anything isn't going to work.

He toes off his socks and slowly pads over to the bed. He lifts the covers, sliding in carefully as not to wake Steve, practically holding his breath until he rests his head gently against his own pillow. 

“I’m awake,” Steve mumbles drowsily, only shifting back toward Tony slightly instead of rolling over to greet him as he usually does when Tony sneaks in from a late night in the workshop. 

Tony pulls Steve close, nuzzling his face against his soft, golden hair and breathing in his warm, comforting smell. It’s a mix of his Castile soap and the sandalwood of his Kiehl’s shampoo, Barbasol shaving cream and a faint splash of fading Blenheim cologne, and something underneath it all that’s distinctly Steve. 

He’d borrowed one of Steve’s hoodies once, so long ago now, and it was when he’d found himself snuggling into it later that night, the lingering scent making him feel light and happy, that he’d realized how hopelessly _gone_ on Steve he actually was. 

He’d asked Steve to move in with him the very next day, realizing he wanted Steve to hang and linger on everything he owned. He’d let Steve in, still half-expecting him never to stay, and even then he’d never been happier.

Tony lifts his head to press a kiss to Steve’s temple, soft and sweet, and then settles back down to the pillows. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tony asks, careful to keep his tone even. He doesn’t want to seem too concerned and alarm Steve, or color what Steve thinks about the situation before he even has time to sort out his own feelings. 

“Talk about what?” Steve replies. His long, delicate fingers trace a line, up and down, over Tony’s forearm where it’s wrapped across his bony chest. 

“You know what, Rogers,” Tony squeezes him slightly, not about to let him get away with that nonsense. They don’t lie to each other, not anymore. “I know you heard what he said out there.”

“Not much of it.” Steve awkwardly lifts a hand out from under the covers, and taps his left ear with his index finger. “Don’t forget I only got half a working set now.”

Tony leans forward and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder, nose nuzzling behind his earlobe. 

“Steve Rogers, I’ll love you 'til the day I die,” he whispers, and feels rather than hears Steve lightly laugh against him. One of the first things he did after Steve lost the serum was drop that scene from _It’s a Wonderful Life_ on him, and he’s been doing it with regularity ever since.

“I can still hear out the other one, you know.” Steve’s sharp elbow pokes him gently in the ribs, sending Tony wriggling back. Steve’s body chases his, however, the curve of him settling between Tony's legs. The move is deliberate, and even though it sends a tingle of want darting up Tony’s spine, he holds Steve tighter to stop him from moving. 

“Nice try, you minx, but no.” Tony won’t let himself be distracted. Steve’s not usually the type to sidestep the hard conversations, and he also doesn’t use sex as an avoidance tactic. Those used to be Tony’s go-to moves, however, so he can spot them all too easily with others. The fact that Steve would try this now only makes Tony all the more sure he needs to force this conversation before it builds into something more, something else. 

Something he doesn’t want to even think about. 

He lets his fingers drift down the sharp line of Steve’s sternum, feeling the notches of bone under Steve’s skin. He’s so fragile, Tony was almost afraid to touch him their first night in bed like this, terrified he’d fall apart under his hands. 

Tony presses his other hand flat to Steve’s stomach, feeling his steady breathing, and knows in just a moment he’ll feel it pick up under his palm.

“So. I’m going to ask you a question...and I need you to take a second and think on it before you get defensive and freak out.”

“That’s a reassuring start.” Steve's tone is somewhat resigned, like he might already know what’s coming. 

“Back when we first got together, you remember I asked you if you and Bucky had ever slept together? Been together, in any way?” 

Sure enough, he feels Steve’s heartbeat pick up immediately, like a frantic bird trying to escape an unwanted cage. Steve sucks in a sharp breath but pauses before replying, evidently trying to do what Tony asked, and not jump to any conclusions about where Tony’s going with this. 

“Yes, I remember. I said no. Which is true.” 

“I know nothing ever happened between the two of you before, back then, or even after he came back. I believe you. I am not accusing you of anything, or saying I don’t trust you.” Tony attempts to choose his words carefully, a task he’s never been particularly good at the best of times. 

He's still got his chin tucked over Steve's shoulder, and he finds himself oddly transfixed by the blurry red numbers on the digital alarm clock on their nightstand, so innocuous next to the stack of Steve's books and the art deco table lamp they'd picked out together at some flea market in Chelsea. The day they got it had been so hopelessly domestic and couple-y that Tony was sure that ten years ago he would've hated doing it—if he had even been convinced to go in the first place—but now he nearly smiles every time he turns on the damn light.

He could be destroying that, the him-and-Steve of it all, right now, this very moment.

“But there was something else I should have asked you then, and I didn’t. Because I was afraid of the answer and I didn’t want to hear it. The fact that you and Bucky had never actually been together, physically…the rest I could rationalize away. The fact that he never took you to bed and I did, that I had that and he didn’t…well, that was enough. Then.”

“And now…?” Steve prompts quietly. 

“Now, whether or not you and Bucky ever had sex seems entirely beside the point.” 

“Tony—” Steve tenses up in his embrace, and Tony knows he’s only got a moment to get this out before it all goes sideways. He holds Steve close, trying to tell him with his actions that he’s not going anywhere, no matter how Steve answers what’s next. 

“What I should have asked but was always too chicken shit to say, was: were you in love with Bucky?” 

It’s like Steve forgets to breathe, the rise of his chest simply stopping mid-inhale. By the time he finally exhales, Tony has his answer. 

“I never—” Steve tries to turn to face Tony but Tony stops him, holding fast. It’s odd being able to control Steve’s body like this, to be the one with the physical power to determine how this conversation is going to play out. He normally wouldn’t press his advantage like this because it’s unfair and he’s sure Steve doesn’t like it. 

But he knows if he looks into Steve’s beautiful blue eyes, he’ll lose his courage and he won’t be able to do this.

“If Bucky had come to you before the war and told you he loved you, that he wanted to be with you—what would you have done?”

“Bucky would never have done that because he _wasn’t_—“ 

“Yes he _was_, Steve. He was.” Tony winces, because if Steve really hadn’t heard Bucky’s confession out on the balcony, that wasn’t really his secret to tell. 

But in all honesty, there was no way around it. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to say it just like that, but he was always going to talk to Steve about this thing with Bucky first, before he let Steve and Bucky sort it out between themselves. He wishes he were the bigger person who could simply send Steve in to talk to Bucky without getting a lay of the land, letting things shake out as they might, but even he's not that much of a self-sacrificing idiot.

Because Steve and Bucky are going to have a talk, that much is clear. Even if tonight hadn't happened, there was no way Steve was going to let Bucky’s behavior drag on for much longer without forcing a confrontation. If Steve hadn’t spent most of the last month sick in bed, it would have happened already.

“All those nights when he would hold you like this, Steve, like we are now…you really never thought it was more than that?” Steve doesn’t reply, which in itself says a lot. “Steve.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Steve’s very quiet, his voice so low that Tony could’ve missed it had they not been twined so closely together. 

“Tell me how it was,” Tony murmurs. He’s not entirely sure what he wants to hear. He’ll take any bits of the truth Steve can bear to part with. 

“It wasn’t as if I spent my days pining…it was more this constant awareness that I _would_, if only he would," Steve sighs but something in him relaxes slightly, like he's relieved to be finally telling Tony the whole truth. "I was happy as friends, but it was always there. At the edges. It would’ve taken almost nothing to tip me over into it. ”

“And there was never any moment where you thought he would?” After seeing the way Bucky looks at Steve now, with Steve as he was that night Bucky last saw him at the Stark Expo, Tony can’t possibly imagine that his love for Steve wasn’t written all over his face back then, plain as day. 

But then again, Steve never did think he was worth much, worth loving. Even if Bucky had told him flat out that he was mad about him, Steve probably would’ve come up with a reason not to believe it. 

“Sometimes, I…” Steve starts, and then hesitates. Tony rubs his arm soothingly, presses a kiss to his neck to reassure him. 

“I’d rather know, Steve.” 

“Sometimes in the middle of the night, or in the morning, I’d wake up and he’d be…” Steve shifts back against Tony, but the movement seems to be rooted in the memory, not about him.

"Yeah?" Tony urges him on gently, though he already gets a sense of where Steve's going.

“He’d be hard against me. Against my back. Sometimes lower, rubbing between my…” He hesitates, and Tony fills in the blanks. He can imagine it vividly, Steve cradled against Bucky’s broader body, the only thing separating them the thin fabric of their worn cotton boxers. Steve stirring to the feeling of Bucky’s cock pressed close, the hard length of it nestled between his cheeks, and Bucky rocking his hips just enough to get friction, arms tightening unknowingly around Steve in his sleep. 

Tony had woken up Steve a few times like this himself, rutting against him in the early morning light, and now Tony knows why Steve would always come so fast and so hard when he did it. Part of him feels hurt by this, betrayed that those quiet morning moments weren’t entirely about the two of them, but another part is aroused by the fact that in the end, _he’d_ been the one to make Steve’s fantasies a reality. He’s the one who got to make Steve fall apart in his arms while the rest of the world slept on. 

“He was asleep so it wasn’t _intentional_ but sometimes he’d say my name and…and then I’d think maybe he at least _wanted_ me, if nothing else. But he’d never do anything when he was awake. Always froze up and bolted out of bed soon as his eyes opened, and neither of us ever said a word about it. I don’t even know if he knew _I knew_ when it happened.” 

“What would you do, after he left?” Tony asks. The question takes this conversation somewhere else that Tony hadn’t intended, but he can’t deny that everything Steve is saying isn’t having an effect. On any ordinary day, merely listening to Steve’s deep voice turns him on—sometimes he seriously has Steve read aloud to him as foreplay, the evening usually ending with Tony prying the book from Steve’s hands and crawling into his lap to kiss him senseless. Hearing him recount these sexually charged yet ultimately frustrated, futile moments with Bucky has left Tony with a confused but excited feeling twisting frantically in his gut and his cock thickening between his thighs. “Were you hard, did you touch yourself?”

Tony slips his hand slowly over Steve’s stomach to the elastic band of his boxers, fingertips daring to dip underneath and follow the faint trail of hair downward. Steve’s hips aren’t as wide now but they’re just as sharp, his body strangely muscular in the sense that he’s so thin that Tony can see and feel every angle and cut of sinew and bone under his pale skin. 

“Tony?” Steve stutters out, faintly surprised and already a little breathless. Tony wraps his fingers around Steve’s cock; he’s already half-hard too. Tony’s hips hitch against Steve’s backside involuntarily. 

Steve gasps lightly, then pushes back.

“Tony,” he says again, in an entirely different register. Lust shoots through Tony’s veins like a drug. 

“Fuck, Steve.” Tony buries his face against Steve’s neck, his free hand twining with both of Steve’s over Steve’s chest. His other hand keeps stroking Steve inside his boxers as their bodies writhe like two over eager teenagers discovering what it’s like to rub off against someone for the first time. 

“Need to see you.” Steve begs, attempting to twist in Tony’s embrace to switch their positions. Tony rolls Steve onto his back and haphazardly shoves their underwear down around their thighs, peeling off Steve’s first and then tugging down his own before laying his weight down on top of Steve. It’s not the smoothest they’ve ever been, hurried and uncoordinated, but when his cock lines up next to Steve’s, Steve moans into his mouth like it’s perfect and Tony wouldn’t change a thing. 

He kisses Steve deeply, mouths slanting and tongues tangling, and he pushes his body against Steve’s with the kind of lack of restraint he hasn’t shown since Steve became small again. And Steve reacts like he’s been dying for it, like he had been waiting for Tony to pin him to the bed and fuck him into the mattress. 

They don’t get that far, however, both of them coming far too quickly in messy, hot splashes across Steve’s stomach and chest. He keeps kissing Steve until he stops trembling, regains control of his breath. 

Tony shifts onto his back in the aftermath, Steve resting his head on his shoulder and his hand splayed out across Tony’s chest. He traces patterns there still, the way he used to idly play with the shadows and light when the arc reactor was there. 

“What was that?” Steve asks, and rightly so. Tony certainly hadn’t come to bed with the intent of getting off on Steve talking about Bucky, yet that was somehow exactly what happened. 

He stares at the ceiling, dumbfounded by his own actions. He lets out a long, deep breath, and answers Steve honestly.

“I really don’t know.”


	5. Chapter 5

Tony stumbles into their kitchen around 10am, blinking sleep from his blurry eyes. He hadn’t meant to sleep in, but apparently he’d been more strung out last night than he realized. He supposes the anxiety of his and Steve’s situation had taken its toll. It’s not every night he talks to his boyfriend about being in love with someone else. 

It’s also not every night that he gets off on that kind of conversation either. It’s not like he’s never had a threesome or shared partners or dabbled in polyamory before, but he’s never loved anyone the way he loves Steve. He didn’t think he was going to be _turned on_ by the thought of sharing Steve with someone else, much less Bucky of all people. 

How many hours, days, weeks of his life had he spent simmering and stewing in his jealousy of that man? Tony seethed with it to the point of being sick and spent, exhausted by the force of his own envy. 

And that had been when he’d only _suspected_ that Steve and Bucky loved each other as more than friends. That had been before Steve became Tony’s lover and partner. Before he and Steve had started building a life together. Tony should be _more_ upset now than ever, yet the thought of Steve and Bucky together only stirs something weird and hot in his belly. 

Tony stops just inside the kitchen, taking in the sight of Steve sitting at the counter. The late morning light streams in through the windows and catches in Steve’s golden hair and makes his pale skin glow. He’s wearing one of Tony’s faded grey MIT t-shirts—Tony’s clothes fit his smaller form better than his own, now—and a pair of loose navy blue sweat pants. 

He looks up at Tony standing in the doorway, the dark circles under his blue eyes giving away the fact that he evidently hadn’t slept as well as Tony had. 

Not saying anything, Tony quickly crosses toward him and wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders from behind. Steve tenses for one painful moment, like he’s startled by the move, but then slumps a little, sinking back into Tony’s embrace. Tony buries his nose in Steve’s soft hair, breathing him in. He’s warm and smells of coffee. 

He has his arms crossed over Steve’s chest and Steve lifts one of his hands to rest on Tony’s right wrist. His long fingers are colder than the rest of him, poor circulation taking its toll. 

Tony shivers sympathetically and presses a kiss to Steve’s temple before snaking his left hand out to grab Steve’s nearly empty coffee mug. He backs away and goes to the coffee machine to re-fill it, so Steve will have something hot to wrap his hands around, and to prepare a cup of his own. 

He doctors Steve’s up just the way he likes it—a spoonful of sugar, a splash of cream—and then shuffles back across the kitchen to claim the seat beside Steve at the counter. 

“So.” He starts, nudging Steve’s mug back to him and then taking a sip of his own coffee, staring at Steve over the rim. 

“So.” Steve repeats, not looking up. He links his index finger through the handle of his cup and pulls it toward him, but doesn't pick it up. Tony sits back in his chair, one arm slung over the back and his legs spread open lazily. He hopes he looks casual, unbothered. 

Steve’s whole body is wound tightly again; the line of his back is tense and he’s unconsciously grinding his teeth in that way he does when he’s bottling up his feelings, holding back for fear of saying something wrong. 

“About last night.” Steve glances at him then, and Tony can see the worry written plainly all over his face. “Is it that you admitted you love Bucky that has you so concerned, that Bucky loves you, or that we came all over each other while talking about how much you wanted to be taken to bed by someone else?” 

Steve frowns at him, but Tony doesn’t regret it. Better to be blunt, or they’ll end up miscommunicating and misunderstanding. They’d learned that early on in their relationship. 

“Or all of that. It can be more than one thing. I know you’re capable of stuffing down a veritable hurricane of emotions under that stoicism of yours.” Steve shifts in his seat, the tight line of his mouth setting deeper. “You’re smaller now, though, so there’s less room to hold all this stuff in. Better just let it out before you explode.” 

He knocks his knee against Steve’s, trying to lighten the mood, but Steve doesn’t smile. Tony sits up, abandoning the casual pretense, and cups Steve’s face to tilt it toward his. 

“Hey.” He says softly, and leans in to kiss Steve with as much assuredness as he can muster. When he breaks the kiss he leans his forehead against Steve’s, keeping close. “I fucking love you. More than anything. No matter what.”

“I fucking love you too.” Steve does crack a small smile as he mimics Tony’s less-than-romantic phrasing. He’s so beautiful with his gaze downcast, his long, dark eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks and his plush, pink lips parted, that Tony has to kiss him again. 

His hands find Steve’s hips and then slide down over his ass, cupping his cheeks and lifting and pushing Steve up and onto his own lap. His legs dangle on either side of Tony’s body, his hands going to Tony’s shoulders to steady himself after the abrupt shift. 

“I like you wearing my clothes,” Tony whispers, fingers sliding underneath Steve’s borrowed tee. He can feel the ridges of Steve’s rib cage, the way his stomach concaves as he sucks in a sharp breath. “I like that when I mark you now, it stays there for days.” He tugs down the crew neck collar of the t-shirt and his lips find the bruise on Steve’s collarbone that he’d made days ago. “I like that you’re mine and everyone knows it.” 

“Tony,” Steve sighs, going boneless in his arms as Tony rocks underneath him. Tony’s growing hard, his erection already obscenely slipping free through the front flap of his boxers, and he can already see the outline of Steve’s thickening cock underneath the cotton of his sweatpants. 

He shoves down Steve’s pants just enough to get his length free, waistband tucked snugly underneath Steve’s balls. When Steve was changed back to his pre-serum self, Tony had honestly been _shocked_ at how attractive Steve was. He’d seen a few old black and white pictures, but the way Steve always talked disparagingly about himself left Tony unprepared for the reality. 

He’s gorgeous. 

So lithe and breakable, his body all sharp angles and lines. Everything about him somehow seems longer, like his neck and his arms and his legs, his fingers and feet, even though he’s nearly a foot shorter. It’s that there’s less of him _all over_, and without his usual broad width and packed muscle, he’s lanky in a way he never has been while Tony had known him. 

He loves the way he can cover Steve’s body with his, now, just as much as he’d loved how Steve’s body used to cover his. 

Tony spits in his palm and starts stroking Steve’s cock, which is still long and thick and perfect even if he doesn’t last as long or come four or five times in one night anymore. 

While he must admit Steve’s superhero body certainly was the first thing that had attracted Tony, way back when they first met, he’s sure beyond a doubt now that he’s in love with _Steve_ and will keep loving him no matter what happens, no matter what age, no matter _what_. 

No matter if Steve happened to love Bucky too. 

Tony stands, lifting Steve onto the countertop. He pushes up Steve’s shirt and presses Steve back until he lays flat, then strips off Steve's sweatpants in an undignified rush. His lips and left hand map Steve’s chest, touching and rubbing and caressing, as his right slips between Steve’s legs and starts working him open. 

He has Steve panting and gasping by the time he finally enters. He pulls back and watches as the head of his cock pushes past the tight rim of Steve’s entrance and he feels Steve’s muscles clench—tight, so tight—and then ease. 

“God, I love being inside you,” Tony murmurs as he pushes in further, taking it slowly. He holds when he’s flush against Steve’s body, as deep as he can go. He could stay here forever. Steve always feels so good. Even when his own body is screaming at him to start thrusting, start pumping, part of him wants to remain still and watch every rise and fall of Steve’s chest, feel every flutter of muscle around his length. It’s so intimate and so damn hot that sometimes he wonders if he could come from this alone, staring and only staring at Steve until he just _comes_.

“Tony…” Steve groans. A drop of pre-cum drips from the slit of Steve’s cock to pool just below his navel, and Tony thinks maybe he’s not the only one who finds this standstill arousing. 

He starts fucking Steve painstakingly slowly. His own boxers are shoved down just to his thighs and he still has his own t-shirt on, and even though Steve’s naked from the waist down, his tee is rucked up underneath his armpits. Tony considers stopping and taking Steve properly back to bed, but he doesn’t want to pull out long enough to make that happen. 

Instead he wraps Steve’s legs around his torso and keeps going just like this. 

There _is_ something urgent and needy clawing at the edges of his mind, even though he takes his time and fucks Steve long and hard. He focuses on Steve’s pleasure, triumphant when Steve starts breathlessly begging to come. It’s always rare that Steve loses his inhibitions enough to be downright noisy, but he’s panting and whimpering and crying out now like he simply can’t hold it in. 

“Come for me, baby,” Tony pleads, endearments always seeming to do the trick when it comes to pushing Steve over. He grabs Steve’s hips, urging him harder against him as he thrusts more shallowly, more of a sensuous roll than a harsh thrust. “I love feeling you come all around me.”

“Oh fuck, Tony,” Steve gasps as he wraps his own hand around his length and jerks himself to completion. The mess on his chest is spectacular and Tony rubs his hands through it as he loses his rhythm, stuttering inside Steve’s body and then pumping in hard like he needs to get further in than he’s physically capable of going. His whole body pulses with his orgasm as he fills Steve with his come. 

“Jesus,” he breathes out as he slumps over, resting his cheek against Steve’s chest, tucking under Steve's chin. Steve’s heart beats fast underneath his touch. 

“Tony,” Steve starts, a hint of something like worry in his voice, and Tony quickly lifts his head and captures Steve in a kiss. 

He keeps kissing Steve until his cock goes soft and slips out, then Tony moves his mouth down Steve’s body and buries his face between Steve’s legs. He eagerly plunges his tongue inside Steve’s hole, lapping up all traces of his own come. Steve lifts himself up onto his elbows and buries his hands in Tony’s hair, sighing with unexpected pleasure. While Steve does this to him often, he’s always so surprised by how good it feels when Tony returns the favor, like he didn’t know his body could react so well to someone’s mouth _there_. 

He stops before Steve can get too aroused, knowing it upsets him when he can’t get it up again as fast as he used to. Tony knows his mouth and goatee must be wet and shimmering with spit and come, so he grabs the napkin from by Steve’s plate of now-cold toast and wipes his face clean. Then he takes a sip of his coffee, drowning out the taste of his own come in his mouth, and looks down at his boyfriend splayed out over the kitchen counter. 

“I think you should do this with Bucky.” 

“What?” Steve lifts his head first, confused, and then sits all the way up. 

“This.” He gestures between them. “I think you should see what it’s like. You and Bucky never had a chance to be together like this, and maybe you should have.” 

“Tony…” Steve pulls his shirt back down around his waist and looks around for his sweatpants. Tony picks them up from their crumpled pile on the tiled floor and hands them to Steve, who slips them on and lowers himself down off the counter. “You don’t really mean that.”

“Don’t I?” Tony counters. Steve’s eyebrows lift to his hairline but then drop as he frowns, like he realizes Tony is being serious. 

“I’d prefer you didn’t.” He replies. “I’m not unfaithful, and I’d never—“

“It’s not being unfaithful if your partner gives you permission, Steve.” Tony holds up his hand before Steve manages to open his mouth, stopping the protests before they happen. “You need to talk to Bucky. And I mean, really talk. No more repressed 1940s bullshit. And I know that sounds crazy coming from me, given how much of my life I spent thinking of ever more creative and terrible ways to ignore my problems, Steve, but see, I don’t want to do that anymore. I _don’t_ do that anymore. I haven’t done that since _us_, you know? When we got together, you and me, we stopped hiding and obfuscating and dicking around with each other’s feelings and I…I can’t go back on that. Not now.” 

“Tony, I don’t want to go back either, but this isn’t what I want.”

“Except it kind of is, Steve, but you’re programmed never to admit it.” Tony states. “But you know I’ve never had any compunctions about saying improper, scandalous things, so I’ll tell you what we’re going to do here.”

He sets his hands on Steve’s shoulders and forces himself to look Steve in the eyes. What he finds there is a mixture of panic and anger. He presses on despite it, knowing it’s for the best. 

“You remember that I have to fly to London tomorrow morning? I’ll be gone for a couple of days. I want you to spend that time with Bucky.”

“What the hell do you mean?” 

“I mean…whatever that means. If it means talking it out and braiding each other’s hair until you are back to being best buds and put those romantic feelings to bed…then, good. If it means that you both need to act on some…old desires made new, and bed him instead, then, uh, also good. We’ll deal with whatever shakes out when I get back.”

Steve steps back, slapping Tony’s hands away harshly.

“Are you _serious_? ‘Whatever shakes out’?” Steve spits. There’s only anger on his face now, his fine, delicate features turning pinched and sharp. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

“The kind of person who would stay with me out of duty, even if you would rather be with Barnes.” Tony replies without even thinking about it, the truth simply _there_ already, and he may as well have shot Steve in the heart from the look on his face. 

Steve looks away, pained gaze catching on the kitchen countertop where Tony had only moments before taken him to pieces. 

“What was that then, a good-bye fuck or just a token reminder of how good you are, for comparison’s sake?” Steve asks, and lord, Tony had forgotten how Steve’s words could cut like knives when he wanted them to. It’s been awhile since they’ve had a fight but it seems Tony’s just started one. 

“No, that was a ‘you’re so beautiful that I have to make love to you even though we should be having a serious conversation’ kinda moment, frankly. No elaborate plan or ulterior motive,” Tony explains, trying to pull them back from the brink of this argument. 

It seems to work, at least enough for Steve’s tense shoulders to droop.

“I’m not saying that anything needs to happen with Bucky. I’m just saying…if it does, I think you should go with it. I think it’s a question you need answered.” 

“And if the answer leads to more questions, Tony?” Steve asks, crossing his arms over his chest protectively. Tony reaches out and runs a hand through Steve’s hair. 

“Then we answer those too. Not asking doesn't make the questions go away, babe. We'll figure it out.” He pulls Steve into a hug, feeling relieved when Steve lets him fold him in his arms and hold him tight. “Promise me you’ll talk to him while I’m gone.” 

Steve is quiet. 

“Steve?” Tony prompts, hand stilling as it drags gently through Steve’s hair. Steve nods against his shoulder. When he finally speaks, it sounds like the words are dragged from his throat. 

“I promise.”

Before he leaves for London, Tony slips a handwritten note under Bucky’s door.

  
_I’m out of town for a few days. Whatever you and Steve need to do, you have my blessing. _

_– Tony_

He only hopes he isn’t making the biggest mistake of his life.


	6. Chapter 6

“What did you do, Tony?” 

Tony’s head snaps up from his phone, where he had just declined call #5 from Barnes. Pepper stares at him from across the cabin of the plane. Her eyes are narrowed in suspicion and, if he’s not mistaken, pre-loaded with judgment. 

“What? What makes you think I did something?” Tony protests. She sets aside her legal notepad and carefully twists her pen closed, putting it in the inside pocket of her perfectly tailored navy blue blazer.

“Because Bucky Barnes has called you about half a dozen times in the past hour and you’ve ignored every one. Considering that he’d only call you in the event of a Steve-related emergency, I’m wondering why you’re not answering.”

“You don’t know that was Bucky,” Tony retorts, picking up his tumbler of scotch and taking a long sip. He looks at Pepper over the rim, buying some time as he quickly tries to think of a way to let this all drop. “You can’t see my phone from over there.”

“You’ve given someone else the theme music to _Terminator_ as their ring tone?” Pepper retorts coolly, arching an eyebrow, and Tony ducks his head sheepishly and frowns at his phone, the traitor. He flips the setting to silent, though it seems that’s shutting the gate after the horses have bolted. “And I’m assuming that since we’re not turning the plane around and hightailing it back to New York, Steve is okay, so what’s going on?”

“Everything’s fine.” Tony smiles tightly. The last thing he wants to get into right now is an argument with his old girlfriend about his current love life, especially when his current love life is potentially expanding to include another person. Another person who has been calling him ever since take-off, and who Tony may or may not be actually ready to talk to.

There was a reason he'd left a note.

“You’re a liar, Tony Stark.” Pepper uncrosses and re-crosses her legs, then folds her hands primly over one knee. 

“Hey now.” 

Pepper’s phone rings, then, the factory-default tone of an unknown number, and Tony immediately gets a sinking feeling in his stomach. Pepper taps accept and tosses her long hair over her shoulder as she brings the phone up to her ear.

“Oh hello, Mr. Barnes,” Pepper says loudly, giving Tony a hard look. She puts on her most professional voice, even though she knows Bucky too well for such a business-like tone. “What may I do for you?”

There’s a long pause, and Tony can only imagine what Bucky is saying. Pepper keeps her face carefully schooled, giving nothing away.

“Oh, did he now. Could you send that over?” Her phone buzzes almost immediately and she takes it away from her ear, clicking on something and then nodding once to herself. She returns to her phone call. “I see.” Pause. “No, this is the first I’ve heard of it. It certainly is very enlightening and clarifies quite a few things on my end.” Another pause. “Yes. Let me confer with Mr. Stark about that matter, and I will have him get back to you shortly.” 

She hangs up. Then she looks at him. 

Tony knows he’s in trouble. 

“Anthony Edward Stark, _what in the world_?” She tosses him her phone, hitting him square in the chest. Tony fumbles for a second in catching it, but once he has it in hand he quickly recognizes the image on screen. 

Bucky texted a snapshot of the note Tony left behind. The note that basically gave Bucky permission to do anything he wanted with Tony’s boyfriend. 

“Well, come on now, that was supposed to be _private_,” Tony complains, frowning. What was Barnes playing at here, getting Pepper involved? Granted, maybe Tony shouldn't have ignored his calls, but his deliberate absence was designed to give Steve and Bucky _space_, and he doesn't want to muck anything up for Steve by putting his foot in his own mouth with Bucky.

Pepper doesn't seem to be a fan of his choices.

“Have you lost your mind?” Pepper’s voice pitches higher. “What were you thinking?” 

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was _thinking_ that Steve and his best friend have been in love forever and I need to figure out a way to work with that, or I’m out a boyfriend.”

Pepper gets up and stands over him, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at him with disappointment like a scornful schoolteacher would a misbehaving student. 

“Did _Steve_ say that, or did you? Because I know Steve, and I can’t imagine him giving you an ultimatum like that.” She sits down beside him, poking him in the arm sharply with her finger. “You, however, are fully capable of mucking up one of the best relationships you’ve ever had with no help from anyone else.”

“I’m sorry, but aren’t you supposed to be _my_ friend?” 

“Which is why you’re going to explain this to me _right now_, from start to finish. Leave nothing out.” 

Tony sighs, not wanting to get into it, but Pepper is looking at him expectantly and he knows she won’t let this go. 

“Turns out that Bucky was cool living in denial until he suddenly wasn’t.” Tony runs a hand through his hair. “Steve being…Steve being all...1942 pre-Cap small Steve all over again brought some stuff up and…” He makes a so on and so forth gesture, hoping Pepper will at least let him skim over the finer details. “I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s between me and Steve.”

“You and Steve and Bucky, you mean.” Pepper corrects. “When you loan out your boyfriend like a library book—“

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“That’s right, you can’t fuck a library book.” Pepper replies. Tony glares at her harshly, but it has little effect. “And Steve’s okay with this?”

“What he wouldn’t be okay with is me talking about this with you. With _anyone_. Like I said, this is our private business.” Steve would be mortified right now if he knew Pepper was asking about this, about Steve possibly pursuing something with Bucky while also still being with Tony.

“You should’ve at least talked about it with _Bucky_, don’t you think? Rather than basically pinning a note to Steve like an abandoned baby on a doorstep saying _take care of him for me?_” 

“I didn’t pin the note to Steve. It’s not as if I sent him down to Bucky’s room with a sign that read _Do me_.” 

“Except you kind of did.”

“That’s not—“ Tony gets up, pacing the length of the airplane cabin. He doesn't know how to make Pepper understand this, and he shouldn't have to, but here he is trying anyway. But he supposes if this thing with Steve and Bucky works out, he's going to have to get used to explaining; very few people are going to look on this situation with approval. “Look. Steve and I had a conversation, in which we decided that he and Bucky needed to have their own conversation. And I just…I wanted to let Bucky know in advance that I was okay with that conversation happening, so they…didn’t need to stop mid-conversation to loop me in. So I know that they might be…_conversing_ right now, and I’m fine with that, and Bucky knows I’m fine with that.”

“You sure seem fine.” Pepper’s tone is bone dry. She picks up Tony’s discarded phone and holds it out to him. “Call him back and call it off.”

“No.”

“Tony,” Pepper says warningly, in way she hasn’t had to in a very long time. Not since he started dating Steve, anyway. 

“_No._” Tony is obstinate. “I know this may not seem rational to you, but this thing between Steve and Bucky is bigger than Steve and me. It just is. That’s facts, and my denying that is not going to change a damn thing. These are circumstances that no one else in the world could possibly understand. They grew up during a time when they couldn’t admit how they felt, and then this frankly crazy shit with the serum and the war and their supposed deaths and both of them coming back all these years later and then all this shit with Bucky's memory...” Tony pauses to take a deep breath. “There’s no playbook for this. This situation has literally never happened before to anyone else in the history of all recorded time.” 

“Yet if you strip away all the crazy stuff, Tony, at the core of it, it still comes down to one man being in love with two different people and that man needing to make a choice. And despite everything with Bucky, I’m actually confident that Steve would choose you.”

“But I don’t want to make him choose. I don’t want to do that to him. I want him to be happy. I want him to have _everything_, Pep.” 

“Even if that means you’re unhappy?” 

“That’s just it. I don’t know that I will be.”

Pepper stares at him with pity, like she thinks he’s clearly lying to himself. 

“I really mean it. The thought of being able to give this to Steve, I dunno…it doesn’t make me feel sad, or jealous, or whatever it is someone might think I should feel. I feel _good_, sort of. It feels right.” 

She studies him awhile longer, still unsure whether or not she believes him, but she eventually sighs and holds out the phone again. 

“Well, you better call Bucky and tell him that then, Tony, because I’m pretty sure he thinks he drove you away.” 

Tony takes the phone back reluctantly, staring down at the log of missed calls—_Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky_. 

Pepper stands. 

“I’ll give you some privacy.” She rubs his shoulder comfortingly as she passes, heading back toward one of the plane’s other rooms.

“Now you believe in privacy?” Tony mutters as she closes the door behind her. His thumb hovers over one of the missed calls, and he hesitates for a few moments before finally pressing down to send the call back. 

It barely gets through one ring before Bucky answers. 

“Where the hell are you?” Bucky demands immediately. His voice is rough and agitated, his words coming out in a near growl. “What were you thinking with this?”

“Hello to you too, lovely,” Tony says. He imagines Bucky clutching the note in his metal fist, crushing it in his grip. “As I wrote, I’m heading out of town.” He leans against the wall of the cabin, ducking down a little to look out one of the small, thick windows at the dark clouds passing below. It will be quite late in London when he arrives, and it must just be getting dark in New York. Steve surely must have tried to talk to Bucky by now. “Have you seen Steve?” 

“Of course I haven’t. I’ve been hiding out, avoiding him ever since I saw this idiotic note you left. He knows about this? Steve—Steve Rogers, our Steve—he said this was okay?”

“If you had just talked to him—“

“Stark, if I talk to him, if I see him, after _this_ note…Tony, you really need to think about this carefully.”

“I have thought about this carefully.”

“This isn’t for fun, this isn’t—“ Bucky stops, and Tony suspects it’s because something insulting was on the tip of his tongue. He’s aware that his previous romantic exploits left him with a bit of a reputation, but Bucky has to know by now that he’d never take any part of his relationship with Steve lightly. 

“This is not a game for me, Bucky, I assure you.” Tony tries to sound as sincere as he can, which can be hard when people automatically tend to read sarcasm or facetiousness into everything he says. Being a glib and snarky asshole most of his life has its cost. 

There’s silence on the line for a moment. Then Tony can hear Bucky taking a few long, measured breaths, like he’s trying to collect himself before speaking again. 

“Tony, you need to hear me. If Steve comes to me and he wants this...I am not going to be able to say no.”

“I’m aware.”

“I mean it, Tony.” Bucky pauses again, swallowing hard. "If you're counting on me being the bigger person here..."

"I'm counting on you talking to Steve."

Tony waits out another long pause, holding his tongue.

“After we hang up, I’m going to call him.” It's like Bucky's daring him to back off, just waiting for Tony to realize the huge mistake he's making.

“You should.”

“And I promise you, if he says yes, I will take him to bed. I will…god, Tony, you know all the things I’m going to do. You can’t possibly—“

“Except I can, Bucky. I can. And it’s okay. This time is yours and Steve’s. Only yours. We’ll talk more when I get back—when we know exactly what it is we need to talk about.”

Bucky sighs, and Tony can imagine him pulling at his shaggy brown hair, tension tangled in his fingers.

“I really don’t understand this,” Bucky says, slightly broken, and Tony wonders if maybe he'd made the wrong choice in handling it this way. 

“I’m sorry," Tony starts, still figuring out what _precisely_ he's sorry for. He doesn't want to muck this up any further. "I guess we all should have had a sit-down together. I just…I thought this should be between the two of you. It didn’t feel like my place. But then…I thought I should at the very least let you know I was all right with it, so when you and Steve did talk, I wouldn’t be a factor, at least as far as cheating and all that goes. I didn’t want things derailed by worries over infidelity when you have plenty of other things to work out.” 

“I didn’t want to do this unless I knew you were really all right with it.” Bucky sounds lighter now, slightly relieved. “I don’t know whether to say thank you or tell you that you’re being a selfless fool.”

“If I were selfless, I would’ve broken up with Steve and told him to be with you,” Tony states matter-of-factly. “But this way no one has to lose.” 

“I hope you’re right.” Bucky says softly, like a prayer. Tony closes his eyes for a moment, letting the words echo in his mind. 

“Thank you, Bucky. For calling. I mean, I can imagine someone else would’ve read a note like that and just went for it…it means a lot that you waited until you could talk to me.” 

“It would’ve been nicer if you’d picked up your damn phone and didn’t leave me here hyperventilating for so long.” 

“Oh, you were not,” Tony rolls his eyes even though Bucky can’t see him. 

“You don’t know I wasn’t panicking.”

“Okay, then go clean yourself up, wipe off the flop sweat, and call Steve, would you? I’m sure he’s working himself up real good too, if you’ve been avoiding him all afternoon.”

“I will.” Bucky hesitates, like he’s still waiting for Tony to take it all back. 

“Fucking hell, Barnes, _good-bye_.” Tony hangs up, shaking his head to himself and tossing the phone aside as he flops down across one of the long banks of leather seats along the side of the cabin. 

A few minutes pass before Pepper comes back in. 

“Everything all settled with your burgeoning throuple?” She’s aiming for a light tease but Tony can hear something else in her tone. 

Tony lifts his head to look at her. 

“Shut up, Hester Prynne.”

“Hester Prynne was the one being judged for her sex life, Tony, not the one doing the judging.” 

“Whatever.” Tony drops his head back down to the cushions, waving her off.

“Your handle on American literature aside…is everything all right?” 

He shoots her a reassuring smile. 

“Everything’s fine.” He’s pretty sure he’s not lying, but he guesses he’ll find out for sure in a few days’ time.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve raps on Bucky’s door softly, his heart in his throat. 

Bucky must have been close by enough to hear the timid knock because he opens the door almost immediately. He must have been waiting. The sight of him takes Steve’s breath away, reminding him exactly why he’s here.

Bucky is strangely breathless too, his eyes slightly wild. He’s barefoot, and his hair is down and more than a little rumpled. Tousled, like he’s been running and tugging his hands through it. His red and gray plaid shirt is untucked and unbuttoned, a loose white tee underneath with the v-neck just a little stretched, and his denims are worn soft at the knees. He looks perfect. 

Out of habit, Steve shoves the loving _want_ to the back of his mind, a surge of shame surging in to take its place. 

But then he remembers.

He doesn’t have to pretend he doesn’t feel this. Not anymore. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, and even the simple greeting sounds different when the feeling behind it is entirely honest. Along with all the thoughts of Bucky that come rushing back to the fore, also comes an enormous swell of gratitude and love for Tony for encouraging him to finally face this head-on. 

“Steve,” Bucky replies, like he can’t quite believe Steve is there, standing in front of him. He used to sound that way back when he first regained his memories, and it’s strange hearing that combination of disbelief, gratitude, and reverence again after all this time. “Come in.”

Bucky steps back quite a bit, giving Steve more clearance than he needs to enter. He seems uneasy, and Steve can feel his own anxiety ratchet up as he tries to put the right name to the weird tension in the air. In his last message to Bucky he’d said that they needed to talk, which, Steve supposes now, was frustratingly vague. But he hadn’t wanted to tell Bucky about all this on a voicemail. This was the kind of thing you talk about face-to-face. 

Not that he would _know_, as this is all a little out of his realm of experience, but he at least wanted to look Bucky in the eyes when he, at long last, said the unsaid. 

“Sorry I took so long to call you back, I just…” Bucky closes the door behind him, leaning against it. He digs a folded piece of notebook paper out of the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and holds it out to Steve. “Read this.” 

Puzzled, Steve reaches out and takes the crumpled note from him, unfolding it gingerly. He recognizes Tony’s messy handwriting immediately. 

“What did he do?” Steve asks, more to himself than to Bucky, and quickly scans the short, to-the-point directive for Bucky to basically do with Steve as he pleases. He shakes his head, his laugh a mixture of bitter disbelief and reluctant amusement over Tony’s gall. “Christ almighty, Tony.” 

Well, the first hurdle of how to awkwardly bring this up with Bucky has already been toppled over with the grace of a herd of stampeding elephants. His heart sinks a little, because even if his own plan hadn’t been so clear, it definitely hadn’t been this. 

“This must have been confusing as hell, Buck. I’m sorry, I—”

He stops speaking as he looks up at Bucky, who has both his hands shoved in his pockets like he doesn’t know what else to do with them. He looks both nervous and hopeful, but not at all upset. Maybe he had been at some point, but he’s not now. 

Steve swallows around the words in his throat, pausing to re-evaluate. Bucky fills the silence.

“I already called Tony about it. Wanted to make sure he really meant what he wrote there.” 

“He does.” Steve nods slowly, while his mind races a mile a minute trying to figure out what his next move is here. Bucky takes a step toward him. “I was…I was planning on talking to you about this. I mean, he wants us to talk about this and…”

“To clarify, Stevie, when you say _this_, you mean something between you and me, right?” Bucky takes another careful step toward him, his hands still in his pockets. 

“Tony said that you love me.” Steve blurts out, and that stops Bucky in his tracks. His cheeks heat, his skin goes clammy. He hasn’t been this apprehensive around Bucky since…well, ever, really? Maybe ever since the day they first met when Steve hadn’t yet figured out why such a charming, strong, and popular kid wanted to be friends with a stubborn pissant like him. He still hasn’t figured that out, but he did quickly stop questioning his good luck and decide to just be grateful for Bucky’s odd choices. “Or he said that you’re _in_ love with me. However you want to put it.” 

“Tony’s a bit of a blabbermouth, seems like.” Bucky comments, pushing out a short, airy laugh. He lifts one hand to his hair, running his fingers through it slowly. He looks at Steve shyly as he does it, perfect teeth worrying his bottom lip. “Saying all the things for us before we can say them ourselves.” 

“He gets ahead of himself. Ahead of us, really.” Steve says, hearing the fondness creeping into his voice. He doesn’t actually like that Tony dropped Bucky this casual, less-than-informative letter, but he knows exactly why Tony did it. He knows Tony’s intentions were good, if his execution poor, because he knows Tony sometimes better than he knows himself. 

Because he doesn’t really know himself, not fully. How could he, when he has denied this part of himself for so long? 

It took Tony to see it, to realize it, and even then it probably never would have happened if he hadn’t lost the serum. Staring in the mirror at his old self forced him to look long and hard at what exactly he’d left behind. 

“You want to…wanna sit?” Bucky gestures to the couch, and Steve nods, following Bucky quietly. The couch is light blue, extra long and overstuffed, and he’d been with Bucky the day he’d picked it out. He’d helped Bucky with most of the stuff in his place, now that he thinks about it. 

He sinks back into the cushions and runs his hand over the armrest, feeling the soft fabric under his fingers. 

Bucky sits down at the opposite end, putting lots of space between them, but despite that his whole body is angled toward Steve’s.

They look at each other, both seeming like they’re going to speak, but then look away. Bucky chuckles, then sighs.

“I fucking hate not knowing what to say to you,” he admits, and Steve smiles, feeling some of the tension in his chest ease. 

“Things between us have been so shitty, Buck, since I changed back to this.” He makes a sweeping gesture down the length of his body. “I didn’t understand at all but then Tony said that and…” He looks at Bucky, meeting his gaze. “It all made sense. At least, it does if it’s true.”

“It’s true.” Bucky replies quickly, nearly talking over the end of Steve’s sentence. “It’s been true since the day my ma explained what this kinda love was and I finally had a word to put to that feeling I got whenever I looked at you.” 

“Why didn’t you ever say anything? It’s not like you had competition, Buck, and you must’ve suspected…” Steve stops, not wanting to sound like he only fell for Bucky because no one else paid him the time of day. That’s not how it happened. He'd only ever had eyes for his best friend. “You were the one out on the town every night, I literally had no idea you even felt that way. I thought it was hopeless.”

“You loved me then?”

“Bucky…you idiot, I still love you _now_.” Steve rests his elbow on the armrest and his head against his hand, tilting his face to look at Bucky across the length of the couch. He smiles softly at his best friend as the realization dawns over his handsome face. “Why do you think I’m here, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Let me down easy?” Bucky replies, though it’s obvious he doesn’t fully believe that. “You love Tony.”

“I do. I love Tony too.” Steve nods. There’s no question of that; in this whole mess, he’s never once doubted that what he feels for Tony is real and lasting. It’s weird how assured he is, even as he grapples with the overwhelming resurfacing of his desire and love for Bucky. 

He doesn’t want to leave Tony for Bucky, and the thought that maybe he doesn’t have to make a choice is revelatory. To be honest he still hasn’t wrapped his mind around it entirely. It had seemed like such an impossibility but Tony…

With Tony, nothing is impossible. That Tony is not only okay with him trying this but actively wants him to, and that he's actually here with Bucky now talking this through…well, he’s a hell of a long way from those early days when he and Tony first met and Steve had been terrified that he’d be caught out for staring too long at Tony’s wickedly gorgeous smile. 

“My feelings for Tony aren’t going to change,” Steve says as firmly as he can, his voice slipping a little into Captain mode in a way it hasn’t for weeks. This is the one thing he absolutely needs to be crystal clear about, going in. 

“Then why are you here?” Bucky asks, with a hint of frustration. “I mean, I know what Tony said, but I know you, Steve, this isn’t you.” 

“Isn’t it?” Steve replies softly. “Tony’s my first serious romantic relationship, Buck, so it’s not like I have everything figured out. I didn’t think this would be me either, but…who knows who I am, when it comes to this? What I do know is that I’m not a coward, and that I feel so strongly for you both, and Tony…” Steve loses his nerve and averts his gaze from Bucky as he gets this out. “I mean, he says that’s okay. He wants me to go wherever this takes us.”

“Yeah, while he’s gone. And what about when he comes back?” 

“That’s for us to decide. But you need to understand that whatever we do decide, Tony’s a permanent part of the equation.”

“Steve, I…I don’t wanna do this at all if I only get to have you for a few days. If you’re just gonna go back to him like nothing at all ever happened…I’m tellin’ you right now, I won’t be able to handle that.” 

“I couldn’t handle that either.” Steve replies, relieved. “I don’t want this to be some illicit weekend. That’s not me. That’s not us.” 

“Us meaning you and me or us meaning you and Tony?”

“Both. Either.” 

“So…”

“Tony said…” Steve starts, and realizes that he has no way to say this that doesn’t make him sound like an entitled, greedy ass. He sighs and moves his hands to his lap, fingers twisting together nervously. “Tony said I could date you both. Love you both. Be with you both.”

“We’d…share you?” Bucky sounds a little surprised, but he shifts closer on the couch, his metal arm unfurling across the length of its back. Steve’s not sure he likes the word _share_, making it sound like he’s some object being passed back and forth, but he doesn't have a better way to describe how this would work so he lets it lie. “You’d want that?”

“I would—if you do too. Tony is willing.” Steve sneaks a glance at Bucky’s face, trying to get a better sense of his reaction. Bucky is watching him with equal scrutiny, which probably means that they aren’t actually getting much of a read on each other at all. “Polyamory is what they call it; these days there’s a helpful term for everything. It’s not exactly usual, but it’s not unheard of.” 

Taking the risk, Steve stretches his right arm across the couch cushion between them, leaving his palm face up. 

“I understand if this isn’t for you. I’m a bit boggled to be considering it, myself.”

Bucky looks at him for a moment but then moves his own right hand to take Steve’s. He has to move closer to do it comfortably, and that brings his other hand nearer to Steve’s head. 

Steve leans into it, and Bucky’s deft metal fingers brush gently through the thin strands of his hair. 

“If it means I can be with you, Steve, even some of the time…” Bucky whispers, and Steve nods slowly. He wants Bucky to kiss him, all of a sudden. 

Well, he’s always wanted Bucky to kiss him, but the need for it now is overwhelming and sharp, like his brain had suddenly grasped that this thing he never thought would ever happen can now happen. Is going to happen. Finally. 

Bucky closes the gap between them and cradles Steve’s face in his hands. 

“Steve.” His face drifts closer but their lips don’t meet, not yet. 

“Buck?” Steve covers Bucky’s hands with his, his touch gentle. 

“Is ‘yes’ enough for now, and we can work out the particulars later? Because I…” His words drift off as their mouths brush together once, then twice. “Literally all I can think about right now is touching you. I can’t think of anything else.” 

Steve nods again, lips dancing across Bucky’s as he does, and Bucky makes a small, pained sound and captures Steve’s mouth with his. He starts gentle, like he’s giving Steve time to back out, so Steve pulls Bucky closer to him, insistent. Bucky groans just a little and gives into it completely.

He kisses somehow exactly like Steve thought he would, but also differently. Better. He guides Steve through it like they’ve been kissing for years, the angle of their heads and the slant of their mouths knowing and assured. Bucky’s tongue slides against his and his fingers tangle in Bucky’s hair and he could do this forever; they have so much lost time to make up for. 

“Bucky,” Steve breathes between kisses. Bucky’s hands go to Steve’s hips, broad and strong over his too-thin waist, and then Bucky pulls him firmly onto his lap. Steve doesn’t fight it; his legs spread easily on either side of Bucky’s strong thighs. He whimpers into Bucky’s mouth as Bucky palms his backside, urging their bodies closer.

Steve loses himself in it entirely. He doesn't know how long they stay like that, wrapped around each other, but when he finally draws back to gasp for air, Bucky looks positively wrecked. His hair is a mess and his skin is flushed and sweaty; his gray-blue eyes are blown wide and his mouth looks used. 

Bucky stares at him too, so he knows he must look equally undone. 

“Steve,” Bucky says softly, and they tumble back onto the couch, Bucky on top of him. Bucky’s body covers his, head to toe, enveloping him in his warmth and his comforting smell. When Bucky had remembered what scent he used to wear, _before_, the first day he’d worn his cologne around the Tower, Steve had nearly cried. He smelled like home, like their old apartment and their shared bed, like cold nights walking home from dance halls with Bucky’s arm slung over his shoulder, and warm summer evenings when that cologne mixed with sweat as he and Bucky tried to cool off on the fire escape. Steve had wanted to bury his face against Bucky’s neck and breathe him in. 

He does that now, kissing and licking his way from behind Bucky’s ear down the curve of his throat to the sharp line of his collarbone, his eager hands tugging and stretching the collar of Bucky’s cotton tee. Bucky’s plaid shirt is already hanging off his shoulders, half-down to his elbows. Steve considers tugging it all the way off, but he doesn’t want to rush things, doesn’t want to push too far, too fast. 

Bucky pulls back and tugs his shirt off himself, clumsily getting caught in the tangle of sleeves. They both laugh as he finally frees his arms, and Bucky kisses him again even as they grin against each other’s mouths. Bucky doesn’t lower his body back down all the way though, holding himself above Steve, palms flat against the couch cushion on either side of his shoulders. 

He stares, looking his fill, and Steve stares back. Bucky doesn’t need to explain the reason for the pause; Steve understands. It’s hard to believe that they’re finally here. He almost _can’t_ believe it, even as his eyes trace the sharp planes of Bucky’s cheekbones, the lush pout of his lips, that beautiful icy blue of his irises that always reminded him of the fall sky over New York Harbor on a rainy day. 

Steve’s been denying this love of theirs since he was fourteen years old and he’d gotten so damn good at it. He’s awed at the wondrous feeling of simply…letting it all go. 

Steve runs his hands up Bucky’s taut arms, feeling the muscles shift under his touch. His fingers slip under the loose short sleeves of his t-shirt and find the curve of Bucky’s shoulders, then slide back down the cords of his tight biceps on one side, and cool steel on the other. Now that he can, he just wants to keep touching him. 

“Steve…” Bucky starts, and Steve’s not sure there’s anything more to it than that. 

But there is. 

“Do you want…?” He trails off, but Steve knows what Bucky is asking. And in answer he’s rolling his hips to meet Bucky’s before he realizes that’s what he’s doing. 

“I want to.” Steve assures him, lifting his head and pulling Bucky down to meet him halfway. “Wanted to for so long.” They kiss with renewed fervor, their entire bodies behind it now. 

He wraps his legs around Bucky’s waist and rubs against him. They lose time, somehow, minutes piling up into half an hour as they passionately neck on the couch the way they might have if they’d given into this back when they were kids. 

Though if they’d done this when he was sixteen or seventeen, Steve knows he never would’ve lasted longer than a few minutes. He’d either have come too fast in an embarrassing rush, or halted the whole thing with a coughing fit or asthma attack. 

Luckily his time with Tony had taught him a thing or two about stamina, and modern medicine has made this frail body of his far more manageable than it might have been back in the day. 

He’s ready for more, and as Bucky hesitates, Steve realizes maybe Bucky is waiting for him to take the next step. 

“Here…” Steve gets his hands on the hem of Bucky’s tee and pulls up. Bucky takes it over his head as Steve immediately goes to the buckle of Bucky’s belt, and then the button and zipper of his jeans. Bucky tries to start undressing him and return to kissing him at the same time, and the result is a uncoordinated tangle of arms and legs, noses bumping and teeth clacking as they both focus on doing too many things to be competent at any of them. 

Steve laughs breathlessly as he pushes Bucky back. Bucky goes easily, letting Steve roll them over so Steve’s on top. Bucky bites his lip, eyes going dark as Steve stands up for a minute and finishes disrobing. 

Tony has given him a confidence in this body that he never felt before, but he still blushes under the intensity of Bucky’s heated gaze. Bucky’s eyes drift down and then back up, his breath hitching as he takes in just how hard Steve already is for him. His mouth hangs open for a second, and then he licks his lips and swallows hard. 

“Steve…” Bucky whispers reverently, already sitting up to get his hands back on him and pull him in. Steve lets himself be moved closer, but only enough to hook his fingers over the waistbands of both Bucky’s jeans and boxers. Bucky lifts his hips and Steve tugs them down over the curve of Bucky’s ass, down his thick thighs and muscular calves, and over his long, elegant feet. His cock, once free, slaps up against his flat abs, hard and leaking and beautiful. 

The last of Bucky’s clothes hit the carpet with a heavy thud and Steve places his palms on Bucky’s thighs without thinking, smoothing them up toward Bucky’s hips as he climbs back onto the couch and straddles Bucky’s legs. He bends to take Bucky’s cock in his mouth.

“Oh holy fuck, Steve,” Bucky gasps, every inch of his body snapping taut as Steve sucks at the head, tongue laving the sensitive tip with attention. He’s never done this with anyone but Tony, and the ways that Bucky reacts—both the similarities and the differences—are exciting.

Bucky is trying to be gentle, but everything about the way he’s moving speaks to a man very cautiously holding back. His hands are in Steve’s hair, but they’re careful not to tug too hard. Bucky urges his hips upward to push into Steve’s willing mouth, but he’s slow about it, and not too deep. Steve briefly considers urging Bucky to let loose, because he knows he can take it, but then he thinks maybe that’s better left for a later time. 

“_Fuck_,” Bucky curses as Steve works all the way down his length, nose pressed into the dark thatch of curls between Bucky’s legs. With his other hand he rubs gently at the sensitive spot behind Bucky’s balls, and Bucky makes a strangled, beautiful noise. His thighs tense, legs spreading wider, and where Steve has his other hand flat on Bucky’s abdomen, he feels the twitching and clenching of muscles that warn him what’s about to happen even before Bucky can get the words out himself. 

The taste of Bucky’s come floods his mouth, hot and bitter, and Steve swallows it down greedily. He eases off but doesn’t stop entirely, holding Bucky’s length in the wet heat of his mouth until long after the tremors of his body have subsided. When Steve finally kneels back, Bucky’s length resting half-hard against his own thigh and glistening with Steve’s saliva and his own come, Bucky trembles again. 

“I always wondered what you’d taste like,” Steve says unthinkingly, an easy truth slipping from his lips while all his defenses are down. “I’ve always wanted to do that, Bucky.” 

Bucky nods like he’s never understood a sentiment more and he tugs Steve down on top of him. 

“I want to do everything with you, Steve. Everything.” He kisses Steve deeply, groaning at the taste of himself in Steve’s mouth. When he thumps his head back against the couch, he seems to be in a daze. “Can’t believe you made me come already. There’s so much I need to…”

Steve ruts against him, feeling Bucky’s length starting to harden and fill again already. Instinctively he moves so that the head nestles between his cheeks, tip catching at his entrance, and his whole body heats at the suggestion of Bucky pressing into him. 

“I know what the serum can do better than anyone, Buck,” Steve smiles down at him. “And there’s no hurry.”


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky takes Steve at his word and takes his time.

He gets Steve on his back, head angled at the corner of the couch, and kneels between Steve’s parted legs like a man in prayer. Steve _feels_ worshipped as Bucky’s strong hands intimately stroke his thighs and slip reverently over his stomach. When one of Bucky’s long fingers finally breach his body, Steve is rapt with desire, nearly dizzy with want. 

It was so many decades ago that he dreamed of Bucky’s work-calloused hands rough on his skin, but it feels so fresh in his mind now that it may as well have been yesterday. How many nights had Bucky come home from the docks, smelling richly of sweat, his handsome face streaked with dirt, that usually perfect dark brown hair of his damp and messy and curling over his forehead? Without a modicum of modesty, he would strip out of his overalls, work shirt, and underwear right there, leaving a pile of clothes just inside the front door, regardless of whether Steve was sitting in the living room or not, and set about taking a bath in the tub that was just off the kitchen. 

If only he’d known then that Bucky had wanted him too. That if he’d only had the nerve to make a move, Bucky maybe would have pinned him to the couch and fucked him senseless before even thinking about rinsing the long day off of his skin.

He can scarcely believe Bucky is before him now, gazing down at him like _he’s_ the one in awe, one hand nearly inside him and the other gentle but firm on the inside of his knee. 

Bucky leans down and kisses Steve once, softly. Then he pulls back slowly, eyes carefully locked on Steve’s face, and positions himself at Steve’s entrance. Steve stares up at him, their exchange wordless but clear, as Bucky finally guides his cock in with a slow, steady push. 

Steve gasps lightly at the stretch, at the feeling of being so full as Bucky slides in, inch by inch. He stares up at Bucky and Bucky’s gaze refuses to waver from his until he’s fully seated. Then his eyes flicker closed for just a moment as if he’s overcome. 

“Steve…” Bucky sighs, voice trembling, and Steve can only nod breathlessly in agreement with the underlying sentiment. When Bucky opens his eyes, they both glance down to where their bodies are joined. Steve quivers at the sight and feel of Bucky’s body pressed into and against his.

“I’m inside you,” Bucky says, and for a second, he sounds sixteen again. He repeats it like he can’t quite believe this is actually happening. “Steve, I’m inside you.”

Steve tilts his hips up just a little, and squeezes around Bucky’s length experimentally. He’s in so deep, and he feels so good. The sensation is more intense than he was prepared for, and he swears he can feel the throb of Bucky’s heartbeat echoing throughout his entire body. 

He repeats Bucky’s words to himself, almost like the feeling of it all isn’t enough to convince himself it’s all real, either. His best friend is inside him. 

“Fuck me,” Steve whispers, the words giving him a thrill, and pulls Bucky back down to him as Bucky starts to move, shallowly at first. Their foreheads rest together and their lips brush in promise of a kiss that doesn’t come, both of them too overwhelmed to do anything but share breath and stare into one another’s eyes. 

Bucky works up to longer, deeper thrusts, but he doesn’t shove into him sharply, instead rolling his hips in this fantastic, languorous way that makes Steve’s whole body want to draw Bucky in closer. Unable to stop himself, his greedy hands find the muscled curve of Bucky’s ass, fingers digging in to warm skin as he feels every shift and flex as Bucky moves. 

“You feel so…” Bucky gasps against his lips, the rest of his words disappearing into another kiss. He adjusts his stance, hips shifting a little to the left, and Steve moans into Bucky’s mouth. His leg slips down from by Bucky’s shoulder to bend around Bucky’s waist, heel against the small of Bucky’s back. It’s like they fold into one another; for right now there’s nothing in the world except Bucky’s body against his. 

Any sense of fear or trepidation about crossing this line with his best friend is entirely gone. It’s replaced by a feverish, desperate single-minded purpose. Steve lets himself give into it, feeling safe in a way he never has with anyone except Tony. 

Bucky draws back to catch his breath, the pace of his hips not missing a beat, and Steve’s hands immediately go to Bucky’s strong pecs, palms cupping firm muscles and finger tips sweeping over his nipples. Bucky smiles a little, breathless and beautiful, as Steve lets his touch wander lower, tracing the lines and divots of Bucky’s abs and tight waistline. Again Steve finds himself caught off guard, rapt with wonder, at the sight of Bucky’s cock between his own legs. Something about seeing that dark thatch of hair and the inch or so of Bucky’s thick length that’s visible, knowing the rest of it is deep inside, fucking him open, is nearly as arousing as the feel of their actual fucking. 

He’s always been a visual person, so Steve supposes it makes sense, but there’s something different about how much he’s turned on by watching Bucky. It’s something different from when he’s with Tony. It’s like he’s partially outside himself, observing with interest the sight of two lifelong best friends becoming lovers. 

It could be that he’s wondering what this might look like to Tony. If Tony were here, if Tony were watching. 

Steve curls his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck and brings him back down for another kiss. He’s not going to last, not like this. 

Bucky seems to know because he gets a solid grip on Steve’s cock and starts stroking with purpose. 

“I’m gonna come, Steve, come with me, oh god, please…” Bucky pleads, as if Steve would for a moment deny him. Steve nods helplessly, their kiss once again turning into shared gasps, mouths brushing as they struggle to breathe. 

Steve cries out as he comes first, powerful and messy all over his stomach and chest. His whole body tightens, pulling Bucky closer to him, further into him, and he can feel his insides clench around Bucky, so hard and hot inside him, and then the pulse and shudder deep within as Steve wrenches a long, drawn out orgasm from Bucky. He’s never quite sure if it’s his active imagination or a real sensation, but he swears he feels the wetness and heat of Bucky emptying a load inside of him; he is sure, however, that he feels it when Bucky fucks him through it, come seeping out and catching in Bucky’s pubic hair and dripping down his thighs. 

He doesn’t hide his fascination as Bucky’s thrusts slow to a stop and his dick, still hard and wet with slick and come, slips out. 

“That makes me want to suck you again,” Steve says, hand stroking down to grasp, and Bucky shudders again sharply with the overload of sensation. A weak spurt of come drips from his tip onto the couch cushion between Steve’s legs. 

“Hell, Steve,” Bucky gasps, grabbing his hand and pushing it away. Bucky quickly twines his fingers with Steve’s however, wanting his touch somewhere even if he’s too overstimulated for what Steve intended. 

They settle for kissing, letting their bodies relax against one another’s until Steve can feel the telltale signs of Bucky’s increased libido pressing against his thigh. He arches against Bucky’s body and whispers for Bucky to take what he wants. 

Bucky smiles against Steve’s neck, then pulls back to look down at him with a teasing grin. 

“Were you always this incorrigible, or is this Tony’s doing?” 

Then Bucky’s face freezes for a split second, and Steve knows that he hadn’t meant to bring up Tony right now, like that. He looks instantly regretful of his choice in words. 

“I’ve always been like this, in my head,” Steve responds, deciding not to let anything ruin the moment. He resists Bucky’s instinct to pull away, tightening his hold on his hand and pulling him back in closer. Bucky doesn’t really resist, closing his eyes as Steve runs his other hand gently through Bucky’s hair. “Tony just made me feel all right with saying it. With saying what it is I want, with being who I am.” 

Bucky smiles his slightly crooked, earnest smile, and turns his head to press a kiss to Steve’s palm. 

“Then I’m glad you found him,” Bucky replies quietly, with another kiss to Steve’s fingers. “That you have him.”

He pulls back slightly, his smile turning rueful.

“It probably seems weird to say, considering.” Bucky climbs up from where he’s been kneeling on the floor and sits beside Steve on the couch, their legs tangling together comfortably. They’re both a mess, but Steve can’t bring himself to care much. “But it really does make me happy to know that you’ve had someone who loves you like that, the way I should have all along.”

“Bucky. Me and you, and me and Tony…those situations couldn’t be more different. It’s not fair to compare.” 

They rest back against the pillows, heads mere inches apart, and Bucky pushes Steve’s hair back from his sweaty forehead as they look at one another. 

“Still. Tony Stark is a brave man. Braver than me.” Bucky bites his bottom lip, his gaze flicking downward. 

“Buck, we don’t have to do this now,” Steve assures him, moving closer. “We can take a moment. We can take the whole night, the whole week, if we want to. This doesn’t have to be all worked out—”

“Steve.” Bucky’s head snaps up and he gives him that look that’s nearly as old as their friendship, the one that says _I see through you_ and _Let’s not pretend I don’t know what’s going on._ “What we just did…” He shakes his head, chuckling lightly. “I don’t ever want to stop doing it.”

“We don’t have to.” Steve retorts, but Bucky shakes his head again, more decidedly, and sits up straight. Steve hesitates a moment, then sits up too, his brow furrowing in concern. “Buck?” 

“That’s the thing. There’s gonna be a point where it’s not going to be enough, I can see that plain as day. For you, for me, for Tony. Not like we are now.” 

“What are you saying? You—do you think this was a mistake?” Steve stands up, fully cognizant of his nakedness and the way his whole body shows evidence of their lovemaking. It suddenly feels shameful rather than wonderful, unexpected and shocking like a bucket of ice water doused over his head. 

“No, _no_,” Bucky clambers up, pulling Steve to him. Steve tries to force his heart back down from this throat as Bucky’s hands cradle his face, tilting his head up toward his own. The expression Steve finds there is earnest and slightly worried. “That’s not what I…I only meant we need to be realistic.” 

“And that means…what?”

“It means that I think Tony and I have a lot of work to do—with each other—if we’re going to try this.”

A series of images flash through Steve’s mind, mostly of Bucky and Tony in various highly sexual scenarios, and a few rather more innocent romantic ones. He blinks at Bucky, processing how he might feel about that. It doesn’t strike him as bad, exactly, and the thought of them doesn’t make him jealous, but it still feels slightly odd to consider. 

“You want to try a relationship with Tony? The two of you?”

“Not romantically.” Bucky states quickly, decisively. He frowns, not exactly with distaste, but with something more akin to resignation. “But…Steve, we all see each other constantly. We live in the same building, we work on the same team…and he and I have basically tolerated each other’s existence. All because of this unspoken _thing_ between you and me. Now…”

“It’s spoken.”

“Exactly. And tolerating each other ain’t gonna cut it if we’re really gonna give this a go. So…I mean, I know you're quite literally the middle man, but when Tony gets back—much as I hate to say it ‘cause it’s gonna be awkward as hell—we should all sit down together and talk. All three of us.” 

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Steve agrees. Tony will agree too, he knows, even if Bucky is right about how awkward it will be. Tony will be blunt and provocative and Bucky will be defensive and he…well, he’s probably gonna be some weird, fumbling combination of stubborn and unsure that’s going to send Bucky and Tony all kinds of wrong signals he never intends. He’s going to have to do a lot more research between now and then so he can be better prepared for the discussion. 

His twenty-first century skillset is certainly expanding in new and unexpected ways, these days. 

“And what do we do now?” Steve asks, gesturing between them. This isn’t the post-coital conversation he’d intended, and while he’s definitely glad they had it, it’s not quite how he’d wanted their first time to wind up. He’d honestly hoped for a lot more time with Bucky in his arms before they had this out. 

“I think the last time I gave you a bath, you were at death’s door with a bad case of pneumonia,” Bucky says, wrapping a strong hand around Steve’s thin wrist. “I wouldn’t mind having a nicer memory to replace that one.” 

He takes a step backward, leading down the hall toward the bathroom. Steve smiles and lets himself be pulled.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve is slowly dragged up from the depths of slumber by the feeling of someone’s fingers trailing delicately over the curve of his spine. The touch drifts down to the small of his back, up again to the sharp, jutting lines of his shoulder blades, and then retraces that path once more.

After returning from Bucky’s a few hours ago, Steve had showered and stumbled into bed, exhausted, not bothering to dress. He’d fallen asleep the second he hit their flannel sheets, the comfortable set that Tony had purchased to help keep him warm after the loss of the serum left him shivering at night. His bare skin cools now as Tony tugs the bed sheet down to his waist, exposing his body to the air-conditioned chill of the bedroom, but he quickly begins to warm up again underneath Tony’s touch. 

Steve lets out a deeper, longer exhale as his eyes flutter open, letting Tony know without words that he’s awake. 

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Tony murmurs, affection rich in his voice. “Dreaming about me?”

“Hmm-hmm.” Steve lifts his head and tilts back just enough from the pillow to meet Tony’s kiss as Tony bends across his body and dips his lips to Steve’s. 

Given the awkward angle, the kiss is sweet and light, and unfortunately brief. Tony brushes Steve’s cheek with his thumb before Steve’s neck protests and he has to drop his head back down. 

He starts to roll over to face Tony, to make things easier, but is stopped by Tony snuggling into the bed behind him, sliding one arm underneath him and the other over his waist to wrap firmly around Steve’s middle. He pulls Steve back toward him. He likes doing that now that Steve is small, now the he can move him easily. Steve submits, sinking into Tony’s embrace with a contented sigh. 

He had been worried things would feel different, _be_ different, y’know, _after._ After Bucky. After Tony came home. But this feels just the same as ever. Just as safe. 

Just as loved.

“When did you get home?” Steve asks, covering Tony’s arm with his own and twining their fingers together. Their bedroom is dark, but he’d fallen asleep much earlier than usual. It messed with his sense of time. “I wanted to meet you –” He yawns, unable to stop himself. “I meant to be up.”

“Got in around midnight, came straight here.” Tony tucks his head over Steve’s shoulder. His words are close, warm breath on Steve’s skin. There’s a tinge of bourbon there, but it’s faint. He must have had a drink to relax on the plane. Mostly, all Steve can smell is the comforting scent of Tony’s far-too-expensive cologne. “I almost didn’t wake you.”

“Why not?” Steve traces the veins on the back of Tony’s left hand, reassured by the familiar feel of that jagged scar along his fate line that Tony got a few months back while repairing one of his cars. He knows these hands as well as his own. 

“You seemed dead to the world – usually I can’t even roll over without waking you up, but those sinfully pretty eyelashes of yours didn’t so much as flutter when I came in here.” Steve can hear the teasing smile in Tony’s voice and Steve tries to keep the corner of his mouth from curling into a smile of his own. “So, I figured you must need the rest.” Tony pauses, but it seems like he has something more to say. 

Steve waits a moment; nothing comes.

“I’m up now,” Steve finally says and gives Tony’s hand a squeeze. 

Tony dips his head again and begins kissing the delicate skin behind his ear, the place that he knows makes Steve a little weak in the knees. He disentangles their hands and runs his palm down Steve’s arm, over his hip, smoothing down his body beneath the sheet to slide over the swell of his ass. Tony’s deft fingers part his cheeks and brush over his hole. 

Steve tenses involuntarily, sucking in a sharp breath. He’s a bit sore, still. His whole body aches in a pleasurable way, but between his legs is particularly tender, and maybe a little too much so. He and Bucky had gotten carried away, perhaps, and it’s not like his body can repair itself quickly like it used to. 

Without the serum, everything was feeling a little raw. 

Tony withdraws his touch and lets his hand rest on the small of Steve’s back. 

“So you and Bucky…” Tony starts, then stops, then starts again. “Your weekend was…eventful?” His voice lifts in question at the end of the sentence, like he’s unsure if _eventful_ is the right word to use. 

Steve does roll over to face Tony now, pillows and sheets and blankets getting twisted up as he turns. He finds Tony staring at him intently, his deep brown eyes guileless. It’s far more Tony’s nature to tease and poke and make the uncomfortable into the laughable, but there’s no mischievous wink or sly grin now. 

“How much do you really want to know?” Steve inquires softly, reaching up to run his hand through Tony’s messy hair. Steve likes it like this, when it’s a bit out of control and long enough to tousle. Tony being anything less than picture-perfect and camera ready has always felt like an exchange of intimacy between them. This is _his_ Tony, the one nobody else gets to see. 

“How about…” Tony’s face screws up and he glances at the ceiling for a moment before coming back to meet Steve’s gaze. He sighs. “How about be totally honest, and I’ll tell you if you’re being a little _too_ honest.”

“Okay…” Steve nods. His heart stutters a little, the relaxation of a well-earned sleep ebbing away completely as the tide of anxiety sweeps in. He’d taken Tony at his word that he should explore his feelings for Bucky, but now is when he finds out how much Tony really meant it. If Tony can really handle it. 

He feels more scared now than he had two nights before when he’d first gone up to Bucky’s apartment. Somehow _telling_ Tony what he’d done seems to make it more real than actually doing it. 

“Well, uh…” Steve drops his hands to the collar of Tony’s button-down shirt, Tony having gotten into bed without even bothering to undress or change. The fabric is silky soft between his fingers. “He called me up after you and he talked, and he filled me in on your letter.” Steve coughs, throwing Tony a look that says _And we’ll talk about **that** later._ “Then he and I talked for a little while about what we were considering doing and what that meant, and then…”

Steve hesitates, rolling onto his back. 

“And then…?” Tony prompts. 

“Are you sure you want to hear this? This feels weird.”

“Only weird if we let it be.” He replies with a slight shrug. Steve shoots him another look. It’s not that simple, even if Tony believes it. “Here, let me guess: then he jumped you?” Tony theorizes as Steve waffles. “I mean, that’s what he said he was going to do.” 

“Yeah…that.” Steve admits, then heaves another sigh. He rubs his face, frustration and anxiety rising higher. Tony reaches over and grabs one of his hands, pulling it away from his head and toward his own chest. He also moves closer, tossing one of his legs over Steve’s, his sock-clad feet tangling with Steve’s bare, cold ones. His body anchors Steve’s into place and the weight of him calms Steve a little. 

“Look. Babe. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. I just don’t want you to feel like you _can’t_ tell me things. There’s a difference, there, right? We can agree to that?” 

“Yes.” Steve nods. “But there’s a big gap between saying something happened and saying what happened…_exactly. Precisely._”

“Then why don’t I…” Tony looks down at him, thoughtfully. “Did he kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“And you kissed back?”

“Yes.”

“Like…this?” Tony lowers his mouth to his, lips parting softly. “Or, like this?” Tony’s words brush against his lips and then Tony kisses him harder, filthier, his tongue sliding deep. 

Steve doesn’t answer. He’s left breathless by the time Tony pulls back and starts moving his mouth down Steve’s body. 

“He put his mouth on you? Kiss you all over?” Tony looks up at him with hooded eyes, a lock of hair falling loosely over his forehead. He already looks debauched, turned-on. It makes Steve’s head swim. 

He’d known Tony had been excited before by the thought of Bucky and him in the abstract, but that had been talking. What ifs. Now, Tony’s kissing and licking over the finger-shaped bruises that Bucky had accidentally left on his right hip.

To think, he had been worried Tony would be angry or concerned upon seeing those. 

“Did he suck you?” Tony murmurs before flicking his tongue out to lick the tip of Steve’s cock, then carefully trace a line around the head. 

With how much sex he’s already had over the past weekend, Steve is amazed to feel himself hardening quickly in Tony’s grasp as he begins to stroke. 

“Or just use his hands?”

“Both,” Steve gasps out as Tony takes him in further, lips closing tightly around him, his first few inches lying flat on Tony’s tongue. His mouth is so hot and wet, and Steve can’t believe that he gets to have this and have Bucky too. Just this morning it had been Bucky between his legs and now it’s Tony. 

How can this not only be real, but be okay? 

“God, Tony…you’re really fine with this?” Steve hears himself asking before he’s aware he’s thought it. Tony looks up at him, blinking once or twice before slowly pulling off. He smiles softly, a hand pressed comfortingly to Steve’s thigh. The sweet, innocent gesture is undermined by the way Tony’s lips and chin are already shiny with saliva and how his erection is tenting the front of his dress pants. “We’re really okay?”

“I’m a little put out that I’m not going to be able to fuck you for a few days because Bucky evidently _wrecked_ you…” Tony replies, pushing apart his thighs, fingertips brushing over that sensitive skin. “But there’s other things we can do in the meantime.” 

Tony grabs his pillow from beside Steve’s head and wordlessly instructs Steve to lift his hips. He slides the pillow underneath Steve’s body and then parts his thighs, settling back between them. 

“I’d call him a greedy bastard but who am I kidding, I would have done the same,” Tony comments. He gingerly touches Steve’s abused entrance. He’s staring, _gazing_, more like, and Steve resists the feelings of shame and immodesty that start pricking under his skin as he’s laid out, bare and open, to Tony’s eyes. He squirms a little under Tony’s scrutiny, and Tony squeezes his knees as if to tell him to keep still. 

“It felt greedy,” Steve admits as Tony massages his thighs, spreading him wider. “Or I guess it felt greedy, afterward.” 

“Good thing love isn’t a finite resource, then,” Tony responds. “We can all be as greedy for it as we want.” He lowers his head once more, but his mouth moves lower than Steve’s cock. “Tell me if this is too much.” 

Steve moans as Tony gently kisses and licks around his sensitive hole, his back arching off the bed, pressing himself closer to Tony’s mouth. The pressure of Tony’s lips and the rough prickle of his goatee hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt -- a pleasurable pain. He gets his hands in Tony’s hair and holds his head as Tony fucks him open with his tongue. 

“Someday I want to lick you clean after he’s been inside you.” Tony barely pulls back enough to mumble the words against his thigh. “He did come inside you, right?” 

It’s not like there’s anything there for Tony to taste, to see. Steve had made sure to wash thoroughly when he came home, but somehow Tony still knows. Maybe he and Bucky were just predictable. 

“He’s like I was, he can’t catch anything…give anything…” Steve explains, suddenly wishing he had expressly cleared that with Tony before foregoing the condoms. It’s true about Bucky, but there’s still the intimacy of it, and before this weekend Tony had been the only one ever to… 

“He _is_ like you were.” Tony nods. “So how many times?” 

“How many times what?” 

“How many times did he come inside you?” Tony asks it so straightforwardly, like asking about the weather. He sits back for a moment, undoes his belt and unzips his own trousers. He lets out a small sigh of relief as some of the pressure on his groin is released. 

“Seven. Seven times,” Steve barely gets out before Tony is on him again, this time lying on top of him and kissing his neck. The feel of Tony’s fully clothed body on his naked one sets all his nerve endings afire, and something about the glaring difference in their state of undress arouses him even more. “And twice in my mouth. Once all over my chest.”

“You _did_ have a busy weekend.” Tony’s sliding down the length of his body. “You got one more for me?”

“Always for you,” Steve replies. “Kept thinking of you. Kept wondering what it’d be like if you were watching.”

“You want me to watch?” Tony mouths over his stomach. “Watch the two of you together?” 

“I think I do,” Steve admits aloud for the first time. Though he’s known it for a while, it’s still kind of a revelation. “I just…I think…” He screws up the courage and finds the words. “I want Bucky to make me come while I’m looking in your eyes. God, Tony. I…I want you to hold me, and touch me, while he fucks me. Does that make me _insane_?”

“That makes you filthy,” Tony retorts teasingly, but his next words are more serious. “That makes you mine.” He takes Steve’s cock back in his mouth and swallows him down, throat tight around him. Steve loses all touch with reality as Tony works him, using little of his usual finesse to draw it all out. Instead he’s insistent, demanding, pulling an orgasm out of Steve’s tired body with nearly violent exigency. 

Steve starts shooting down Tony’s throat, the feel of it so tight and hot as Tony swallows around him, but then Tony pulls back. He floods Tony’s mouth, Tony groaning wantonly as he tastes it. Steve’s orgasm is long and drawn out. He’s lightheaded, dizzy with it, but he still feels the shock of cold air on his length as Tony abruptly pulls off, and the wet, hot streaks of come hitting his skin as Tony finally takes out his own cock and jacks himself between Steve’s legs. Steve’s sight is blurry, but he can hear Tony groan and gasp his name as he finishes. 

Steve shudders in the aftershocks, overwhelmed. It feels like every inch of his body is quivering like a live wire. He’s unsure how long it takes for him to settle, to come back down. 

When his vision clears, he looks down the length of his body. Some spatter from Tony’s orgasm decorates his abdomen, drips down his cock and catches in his pubic hair. But most of it, he realizes with a shiver of arousal, Tony had aimed at his hole. It’s as if he was re-claiming, re-marking what he could, even if he couldn’t finish inside. Steve lets out a helpless moan at the realization, desire spiking through him again.

The need to be skin-on-skin with Tony is sudden and overwhelming. Steve sits up, and in an undignified scramble, gets Tony’s dress shirt off his body and throws it aside; he kisses Tony messily as they both fumble with his pants. 

Something like relief washes over him as they tumble back onto the sheets in a jumble of limbs. He’s feverishly warm and sweaty and his dirty skin sticks to Tony’s, but he doesn’t care. He can’t fathom anything else right now; all he wants is to stay in Tony’s arms.

“Hey, hey,” Tony says soothingly, picking up on the undercurrent of desperation in Steve’s actions. He tries to pull back a little so that they can look at one another, but Steve hangs on to him tightly, keeping him close. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I don’t know, I just…” His breath escapes him for a moment, choking in his throat. 

“Steve?”

“I guess I…” He closes his eyes tightly, trying to block everything else out so he can concentrate on finding the right words. “It’s not that I thought you were lying, _I don’t think that_ \-- but maybe…maybe I thought you’d change your mind? That you’d be angry I actually did it.” Steve knows that sounds terrible. If he thought those things, he shouldn’t have gone through with it. But the truth is the fear didn’t strike until after it was done and he was back in his and Tony’s apartment, alone. 

“I was so scared we wouldn’t still be us,” Steve whispers against Tony’s chest. Tony holds him, not speaking, as their breathing settles, as their heartbeats calm. Tony brushes his hair off his forehead and kisses him there, leaving his mouth pressed to Steve’s skin as he speaks next.

“No matter what, Steve, you ‘n me are always an us, okay? The rest is just…us _and_.” His hand runs almost absent-mindedly through Steve’s hair as he talks, thin strands slipping through his fingers. “How did you and Bucky leave things?” 

“He wants to sit down, all three of us, tomorrow. Or, I guess today, rather.” He glances over Tony’s shoulder at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s after midnight, after all. “We didn’t settle anything. Not until we all could talk together.”

“As much as I appreciate being involved, you two must have discussed _something_,” Tony presses, and Steve shrugs, still keeping his cheek pressed to Tony’s chest where the arc reactor used to be. Tony always says he can feel the difference there, despite Extremis having repaired that damage, but to Steve his skin has always felt smooth and perfect.

“He doesn’t want things to be separate, and I don’t think I do either.”

“I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m up for a threesome,” Tony replies, laughing lightly. “I‘m thinking that’s not what you mean, exactly.”

“It’s part of it. But only part of it.” Steve tilts his head, pulling back to look up at Tony, finally. “I don’t want to be an _us and_ to two different people. I think I just want an _us_.”

“So a triad, rather than a vee.” Tony comments simply, as if these things were obvious. 

“If those are the right terms…” Steve tries not to feel unprepared or stupid; he knows that’s not what Tony intends. He’s just processing things aloud the way that he sometimes does. ”I was going to do some more research today.”

“It would mean we’re all in a relationship with each other, rather than each of us being in a relationship with just you.” 

“Yeah…that sounds right.” 

“And Bucky wants that too?” He looks surprised, a little confused. “He and I…we’re barely friends.”

“You just said you’d have sex with him!”

Tony pretends to contemplate this, biting his lip and squinting up at the ceiling. 

“I didn’t say he was unattractive,” he shrugs. Steve slaps his shoulder and drops his head to Tony’s chest again.

“I’m trying to be serious, Tony.”

“I am being serious. Having sex with a person I find attractive who happens to make the person that _I_ love happy…that’s not a burden, Steve. I’ve never been uptight about sex, you know that. But if Bucky wants more than that with _me_…a real, romantic relationship…”

“Yes?”

“Well, he and I have some work to do.”

“Work that you’re willing to do? That you want to do?” Steve asks. 

“I’m willing to try. If he is, that is. And if you’re willing to be patient. It’s not gonna be smooth sailing.”

“I know. I mean, I _don’t_ know, actually. But I would imagine.” 

“Having two separate relationships is one thing, all of us being in one relationship is another. They’re each challenging in their own way, but with Bucky and I…”

“It’s okay if you’re not sure, Tony. Or if it’s simply something you don’t want…”

“It’s not that. The fact is, the source of tension between me and Bucky has always been jealousy over you. We’ve never let ourselves like each other. If we take that out of the equation, if we both get to love you the way we want…who knows?”

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

“That’s always a risk.” Tony admits plainly. He rubs Steve’s arm as Steve involuntarily tenses. “All of us can talk about it together, tomorrow, okay? Tonight, it’s you and me.” 

Tony kisses his temple, then nudges Steve’s face upward with a finger under his chin. Steve blinks up at him, comforted by Tony’s soft smile. God, he loves Tony so much. 

So much.

He hopes he hasn’t set them on the path to ruin. 

“Yeah. You and me,” Steve repeats, and lets himself sink into Tony’s kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are everything. 💖


End file.
